Is EJScreen still available?

Not from EPA. It was removed in February 2025 and the lawsuit seeking its restoration was dismissed in March 2026. Reconstructed versions are hosted by Public Environmental Data Partners and the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, and the underlying federal datasets largely remain published elsewhere.

Are the PFAS drinking water limits gone?

Not entirely. The 4 ng/L limits for PFOA and PFOS remain, with compliance pushed to 2031. EPA proposed rescinding the limits for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and the Hazard Index for mixtures.

Will this site still work if EPA deletes more data?

Yes. Every raw dataset is mirrored in the site's own repository at build time, so it rebuilds from local copies regardless of what happens upstream, and every page states when the data was retrieved.

Guides

What the 2025 and 2026 federal rollbacks changed

Public screening tools were deleted, PFAS standards were partly rescinded, and the greenhouse gas endangerment finding was revoked. What that means for anyone trying to check an address.

Updated 2026-09-03 - 6 min read

The tools that were removed

In February 2025 EPA removed EJScreen, its public environmental screening and mapping tool, from its website, along with related pages. The Council on Environmental Quality's Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool was removed as well. A legal challenge to the EJScreen removal was dismissed on standing grounds in March 2026.

The data underlying those tools was largely federal data that still exists in other releases, and several academic and non-profit groups, including the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative and Public Environmental Data Partners, reconstructed and now host copies.

The practical effect is not that the information vanished. It is that the free, official, one-stop way for a member of the public to look up their own surroundings vanished, and what remains is scattered across bulk data files that assume you can program.

The PFAS change

In May 2026 EPA announced it would keep the 4 ng/L limits for PFOA and PFOS, rescind the limits for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and the Hazard Index for mixtures, and extend the compliance deadline for PFOA and PFOS from 2029 to 2031.

The national testing data is unaffected: UCMR5 results for more than 10,000 water systems remain published, and this site reports all of them, including detections of the four compounds whose limits are being withdrawn.

Several states responded by setting or maintaining their own limits, some stricter than the federal ones. The consequence is that where your water stands legally now depends more on your state than it did in 2024.

The endangerment finding

In February 2026 EPA finalised a rule revoking the 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding and repealing the vehicle greenhouse gas standards that rested on it, describing it as the largest deregulatory action in US history. Litigation followed immediately.

This does not affect any dataset on this site, which covers contamination, drinking water and industrial releases rather than greenhouse gases. It is included here because it sets the direction of travel: the federal environmental information and rule-making apparatus is contracting, and anyone relying on it should plan for that.

What this site does about it

Every raw file Umwelt builds from is mirrored into its own repository at build time. If EPA withdraws a dataset tomorrow, the site keeps rebuilding and reporting from its copies, with the retrieval date stated so you know how old the picture is.

Where a limit has been rescinded, the site reports the detection and the number without inventing a threshold. Where a limit still stands, it flags the exceedance plainly. That distinction is maintained deliberately rather than smoothed over.

And where federal coverage has a hole, this site says so instead of implying completeness. State-managed contaminated sites, private wells and facilities below reporting thresholds are all outside federal data, and no amount of careful presentation of federal files changes that.

Common questions

Is EJScreen still available?: Not from EPA. It was removed in February 2025 and the lawsuit seeking its restoration was dismissed in March 2026. Reconstructed versions are hosted by Public Environmental Data Partners and the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, and the underlying federal datasets largely remain published elsewhere.
Are the PFAS drinking water limits gone?: Not entirely. The 4 ng/L limits for PFOA and PFOS remain, with compliance pushed to 2031. EPA proposed rescinding the limits for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and the Hazard Index for mixtures.
Will this site still work if EPA deletes more data?: Yes. Every raw dataset is mirrored in the site's own repository at build time, so it rebuilds from local copies regardless of what happens upstream, and every page states when the data was retrieved.

Want to know what applies to one specific address? The free check reports what is on the federal record near it, and says plainly when nothing is. Check an address

Umwelt publishes public records and explains the standards that govern them. This is not legal, engineering, environmental consulting or medical advice, and it does not assess any specific property or person.