Regulators Call for Strict Drinking Water Standards, But What About Point Source Treatment?
Regulating Point Sources of PFAS Contamination to Protect Drinking Water
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of human-made chemicals used for decades in various industries due to their resistance to heat, water, and oil. However, what makes them so useful also makes them persist in the environment, earning them the nickname "forever chemicals ." Regulators are increasingly focused on limiting PFAS levels in drinking water to protect public health as evidenced by EPA’s recent maximum contaminant levels established in the Safe Drinking Water Act in April this year. Regulatory bodies across the world are aligning on drinking water regulations; for example, the European Commission Drinking Water Directive has a limit of 100 ng/L drinking water for 20 PFAS.
While drinking water standards are a first step to limiting public exposure to PFAS, this approach fails to address environmental PFAS releases which continue to make their way into drinking water supplies. We’re spending billions of dollars to merely remove small amounts of PFAS and allowing the problem to exacerbate without stricter regulations on the point sources of PFAS contamination. Point sources such as airports, military sites, industrial facilities, wastewater treatment plants, and landfills may be critical contributors to PFAS pollution in drinking water sources. To effectively safeguard drinking water, regulatory frameworks must extend beyond water treatment to address the root cause of PFAS releases at the sources directly.
Airports, Military Sites, and Fire Training Areas
One of the most significant point sources of PFAS contamination is the use of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) at airports, military sites, and fire training areas. AFFF, used to extinguish petroleum-based fires, contains high levels of PFAS, which can seep into nearby soil and groundwater. To protect drinking water, regulators need to enforce stricter controls on the use of PFAS-containing foams and mandate the adoption of safer alternatives. Moreover, clean-up measures should be required at sites where AFFF has been used extensively to prevent further leaching of PFAS into water sources.?
Industrial Facilities
Industrial facilities that produce or use PFAS may contribute significantly to contamination and should be considered by regulators as a primary point source for drinking water contamination. PFAS can be discharged directly into nearby waterways or released into the air, eventually contaminating water supplies. Stricter regulations are needed to limit PFAS emissions from these facilities. This can include banning use of materials such as AFFF (some states already have), setting stringent discharge limits, requiring advanced treatment and destruction technologies prior to discharge, and enforcing robust monitoring and reporting practices to ensure compliance.?
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Wastewater Treatment Plants
Wastewater treatment plants are not usually designed to remove PFAS , yet they process contaminated water from homes, businesses, and industries. Consequently, theireffluent and biosolids contain PFAS, which can then be released into the environment. Regulators should impose more rigorous standards on these plants, requiring the installation of technologies capable of effectively removing and destroying PFAS from wastewater.?
Additionally, the management and disposal of contaminated biosolids should be more tightly controlled to prevent secondary contamination of water supplies. While many states have banned land application, more work needs to be done.?
Landfill Sites and Landfill Leachate
Landfill sites are another point source of PFAS contamination. PFAS can leach out of waste materials and into surrounding soil and groundwater, contaminating drinking water supplies. Historically, this had been an issue with unlined landfills. Today, while linings are required for newly constructed landfills, landfills must collect and treat leachate. This often means sending leachate to a wastewater treatment plant or solidifying the PFAS after a removal process and putting it back into the landfill. While this is a temporary solution, the solidified PFAS will undoubtedly outlive the landfill and will need to be dealt with in the future. Regulatory measures should mandate advanced treatment of PFAS, primarily ending with PFAS destruction technology, to end the PFAS cycle at landfills, a major source of PFAS release.?
Summary: A Call for Comprehensive Regulatory Action
To effectively protect drinking water, regulators globally need a comprehensive approach that limits PFAS levels in drinking water and also addresses the sources of contamination. While regulating PFAS in drinking water is a critical step, it is equally essential to impose stricter controls on the various point sources that release these chemicals into the environment. Only by tackling these sources can we hope to reduce PFAS contamination in drinking water and safeguard public health over the long term.
No working now
1 个月In Japan, same situation of PFAS. there are water works to decide changing water resources from big city because they don't have money for GAC. it is really difficult to treat PFAS by GAC for expensive. i don't know what we should to do.
I have such an issue with putting the burden of treatment on utilities. It’s essentially chemical companies savings costs. Water and wastewater companies should not be paying for remediation. Those costs get passed onto customers who may not even be consumers of the products that caused the initial contamination.
Environmental engineering educator and problem solver
1 个月I often go back to this review paper which suggests that >80% of peoples exposure to PFAS is through diet, dust inhalation, and products. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33201517/ The EPA acknowledged this too in their risk evaluation. This means that the vast majority of human health risk from PFAS isn’t from water but from products we buy and use. Drinking water is “easy to regulate” even if it will be expensive to treat. PFAS use restrictions are going to be difficult for regulatory agencies, for companies, and probably even for consumers. But we need to do it because that’s what’s actually going to put a dent in our PFAS exposures and those of our great-grandchildren.
Founder & CEO of Aclarity | Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science
1 个月It's critrical to develop and utilize PFAS-free ingredients in products. That's the golden target. We need to have a multi pronged approach to implement PFAS-free ingredients, limit environmetnal releases, clean them up, and reduce human exposure. Usually regulatory bodies follow this list from the bottom up, which is logical as reducing human exposure is #1. We see customers in semiconductor and electronics, fuel cells, and aircraft industries (not limited to these) not able to utilize PFAS-free alternatives. I fear it's going to be 10+ years until these industries are able to implement PFAS-free alternatives. While that important work is going on, and now that we have drinking water limits to reduce PFAS exposure from water, I feel strongly that we need to address PFAS waste and effluent from manufactures and storers of PFAS to reduce exposure to the environment.
Helping to improve the environment one little step at a time !
1 个月I see a couple of scenarios possible - technologies like yours (and others) can permanently deleted concentrated loads of PFAS from WWTPs - the consumables of POU/POE units that capture PFAS before entering any house can be recycled in such a way that the above tech destroys again the accumulated PFAS. For the polluted sites, there are interesting approaches like for instance what Earth Plus is doing to remediate soil using hemp and capturing the PFAS in the leaves, which then are incinerated to permanently resolve the issue. The hemp itself is used in the building industry.