Tampa Could Be First U.S. City With New Treatment System Technology To Filter PFAS
As water systems across the country make it a priority to rid supplies of pervasive per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS), one city is set to pioneer treatment technology that could soon be deployed more widely.
“The Tampa Water Department is adopting Suspended Ion Exchange, or ‘SIX,’ working to make its water treatment center the largest SIX facility in the world,” Axios reported. “The technology targets polyfluoroalkyl substances [and a pilot program] showed the technology would reduce the amount of chemicals needed to treat Tampa’s drinking water.”
SIX, which was first developed in the Netherlands, is designed to remove organic matter from raw water influent — an important precursor for removing PFAS from drinking water. Tampa’s pilot program saved its water department the equivalent of $1.4 million per year on chemicals and now the city is in the design phase for a system it hopes to bring online around 2032.
With the U.S EPA set to enact stricter limits on PFAS, drinking water treatment operations are scrambling to figure out how they will fund and achieve compliance. If Tampa’s bet on SIX technology works out, it could offer a roadmap for other major systems to follow, as the city is currently struggling with contamination.
“Tampa recently found slightly elevated levels of two kinds of PFAS chemicals in its finished drinking water,” according to WLRN. “City officials said more than 33% of Florida’s water treatment facilities exceed the proposed limits.”
Tampa’s trailblazing will also offer some insight into the cost of addressing PFAS, a critical component for utilities across the country that will soon be required to take additional measures.
“It’s expected to cost $200 million and it’s part of a larger infrastructure improvement plan that the city council already approved, so [customer] water bills will be increasing every October until 2040,” per NPR. “That said, city officials do point out that the technology will actually save the department nearly a million and a half dollars a year [on chemicals and filters].”
While ratepayers won’t be thrilled to see their bills increase, if Tampa is able to pioneer a practical solution to PFAS contamination, many will agree it will have been worth it.
To read more about how water systems comply with PFAS limits, visit Water Online’s Contaminant Removal Solutions Center.