WATER INDUSTRY FEATURES, INSIGHTS, AND ANALYSIS
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After The Fire: What The 2026 Wildfires And El Niño Could Mean For U.S. Lakes And Reservoirs In 2027
In July, smoke from Canadian wildfires spread across the upper Midwest and Northeast. Now a strengthening El Niño is set to influence the coming winter. Both events matter to lake and reservoir managers because their effects on water quality will continue to emerge long after the skies clear or the El Niño passes.
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Minneapolis Flexes Its Mussels For Source Water Monitoring Solution
Protecting municipal drinking water requires rapid visibility into changing surface source conditions. Discover how combining biological indicators with continuous inline spectrometry delivers real-time contamination alerts, preventing costly treatment plant shutdowns and safeguarding consumer health.
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DEXSORB® Treatment At Groundwater Pump Station
Discover how upgrading existing filter infrastructure with advanced adsorbent media provided over 600 days of continuous PFAS removal, treating millions of gallons of contaminated groundwater to achieve strict drinking water compliance.
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DEXSORB® Treatment Of Surface Water For Gravity System
Discover how a dual-vessel lead-lag media system achieved continuous non-detect levels for target legacy contaminants, treating over 250,000 gallons of surface water to support regulatory compliance and municipal drinking water goals.
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Pretreatment Systems Enable Complete And More Economical PFAS Solutions For operators looking to optimize their PFAS removal systems, controlling the presence of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) offers an approach to minimizing operational costs due to granular activated carbon (GAC) reactivation and ion exchange media change-out.
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What Utilities Don't Know About GAC Reuse For PFAS For utilities building PFAS treatment systems, thermal reactivation of spent granular activated carbon (GAC) may sound like the obvious answer. However, service provider availability and location, specific media acceptance criteria including quantity thresholds, restrictions on GAC type and condition, and regulatory uncertainty can all determine whether reuse is a viable option.
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PFAS Funding Is Flowing — But Does The Water Sector Have Enough People To Deliver It? For several years, the PFAS conversation has centered on treatment options, testing, and funding. Those factors still matter, but they are no longer the primary constraint. Most utilities already understand the treatment routes available to them; the real challenge now is moving from technical possibility to operational performance, and that depends entirely on people.
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The Cost Of Waiting: Utilities Face A Narrowing PFAS Compliance Window For years, the water industry's PFAS conversation centered on monitoring, testing, and regulatory anticipation. Today, that phase is largely over.
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D.C. Circuit Upholds EPA's Hazardous Substance Designation For PFOA, PFOS
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently rejected industry challenges to the EPA's designation of PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under CERCLA, leaving the agency's April 2024 rule fully intact. While the case centered on the EPA's authority to make the designation, its practical significance for water utilities is simpler: the liability concerns that have accompanied the rule since its adoption remain unresolved.
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How Donner Summit PUD Cut Backwash Water Use By 45% With Ultrasonic Algae Control
Recurring algal blooms severely compromise water treatment efficiency, clogging filters and wasting finished water through frequent backwashing. Targeted ultrasonic suppression controls raw water algae growth at the source, significantly improving influent turbidity and lowering operational costs.
VIEWS ON THE LATEST REGS
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For years, the water industry's PFAS conversation centered on monitoring, testing, and regulatory anticipation. Today, that phase is largely over.
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The U.S. EPA is testing a new procedural strategy to remove four PFAS drinking‑water limits from ongoing litigation, asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to invalidate those limits on the grounds that the EPA itself committed a procedural misstep when issuing the 2024 PFAS rule.
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Despite renewed public concern over fluoride and cognition, the National Toxicology Program’s findings focus on high‑fluoride groundwater conditions — not the controlled levels used in U.S. drinking water systems. Understanding that distinction is critical for utilities navigating policy questions and community expectations.
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In this Q&A, Dr. Elke Süss of Metrohm addresses the urgent need for haloacetic acid testing in response to “one of the most significant updates to EU drinking water monitoring in recent years.”
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With the U.S. EPA's PFAS rules now in place, utilities are finding themselves with a growing number of questions regarding how to treat these chemicals, the potential costs, and much more. For answers, Water Online's chief editor, Kevin Westerling, hosted an Ask Me Anything session featuring Ken Sansone, Senior Partner at SL Environmental Law Group; Kyle Thompson, National PFAS Lead at Carollo Engineers; and Lauren Weinrich, Principal Scientist at American Water.
MORE WATER INDUSTRY FEATURES
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Learn why GAC alone may fall short in PFAS treatment — and how utilities can future-proof performance with multi-barrier strategies that tackle short-chain compounds, regulatory shifts, and rising operational risks.
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As water scarcity and energy costs rise, new ultrafiltration membrane technologies deliver higher flux, longer lifespan, and reduced fouling — turning water treatment from a compliance task into an efficiency opportunity.
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Industrial pollution increasingly threatens clean groundwater. Learn how UV advanced oxidation permanently destroys resilient micropollutants like 1,4-dioxane and VOCs at the molecular level, while simultaneously providing robust pathogen disinfection without chemical byproducts.
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Nanobubble physics enable higher ozone stability and mass transfer efficiency in water. Discover how the negative surface charge of these microstructures improves localized oxidation and penetration into difficult matrices.
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Discover how digital twins are enabling the optimization of cell culture processes for improved, more predictable outcomes in the creation of therapeutic proteins and antibodies.
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This article will explore five common misconceptions about GAC and IX technologies for PFAS removal, helping utilities choose effective, site-specific treatment strategies for contaminated drinking water.
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Recent federal PFAS regulations will overwhelm consulting engineers, water and wastewater utilities, and equipment manufacturers as thousands of utilities work to comply. Generative design can enable these parties to meet the workload demand and deadlines.
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Antibody aggregation remains a critical downstream challenge, particularly for complex modalities. Explore why aggregates form, why they matter, and how chromatographic strategies can help reduce risk.
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Enhancing the solubility of poorly soluble APIs is vital for improving bioavailability. Discover how advanced formulation techniques like hot-melt extrusion and spray drying can overcome this challenge.
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Explore how rapid equipment replacement and peristaltic pump technology prevented regulatory violations at a major sanitation district. Learn how high-stakes infrastructure failures were resolved through strategic engineering support to ensure continuous delivery of safe water.
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As regulatory standards for PFAS become more stringent, specialized ion exchange resins provide a more efficient, high-capacity alternative to traditional carbon media, ultimately lowering long-term operational costs and improving overall system throughput and performance.
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Biomanufacturing leaders unite to optimize exosome/EV production. Explore their combined upstream/downstream approach for optimized cell culture, purification, and quality control.
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Discover how N-1 intensification shortens production timelines and improves cell viability by replacing traditional filtration with automated, low-shear separation techniques to achieve higher seeding densities.
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Orlando Drum & Container eliminates hazardous 1,4 Dioxane from groundwater using Pinnacle Ozone Solutions’ Advanced Oxidation Process, restoring water quality sustainably and ensuring regulatory compliance.
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Learn how to design wastewater infrastructure that grows with demand. Modular systems allow phased capacity additions that match actual flow, avoiding the high cost of oversizing and eliminating the need for disruptive, repeated construction.
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Uneven ice formation during bottle freezing creates a "Volcano Effect," pushing solutes into highly concentrated zones. This test-based study explains this risk to drug substance quality.
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Climate change is expanding source water variability beyond historical limits, forcing treatment plants to design for wider conditions—and making digital planning essential for resilient infrastructure decisions.
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Ozone and UV-AOP each offer powerful contaminant removal for drinking water, wastewater, and reuse applications. Their unique strengths—and potential synergy—help utilities meet diverse treatment goals efficiently.