SOURCE WATER CONTAMINATION RESOURCES

• Tackling The PFAS Crisis In 2023

  2022 may be heralded as the year that PFAS took center stage in the effort to provide safe drinking water access for all. Some states began enacting laws targeting the “forever chemicals,” and the U.S. EPA took major steps to designate two of the most widely used PFAS as hazardous substances under CERCLA. However, concerns that the progress may not be enough to adequately combat PFAS have only intensified.

• Regulating Farm Pollution To Reduce Harmful Algal Blooms

  As nutrient pollution increases the incidence and severity of harmful algal blooms, it is obvious and important to point mitigation practices toward a prime culprit — the agriculture industry.

• Leachate — A Key To Unlocking The Chain Of Recirculating PFAS Forever?

  PFAS contamination is ubiquitous in the water cycle, but landfill wastewater leachate poses an opportunity to treat concentrated streams and break up the continuous movement through the water cycle.

• How EPA Can Help Utilities Be More Climate Change Resilient

  As global climate conditions change, water utilities face a variety of stressors, including drought, flooding, rising sea levels, saltwater intrusion, and more. These changing conditions put increasing amounts of pressure on utilities to upgrade and adapt their operations and infrastructure. Unfortunately, many utilities lack two key things needed to become more climate change resilient: the expertise to determine the most critical projects to invest in, and the funding needed to implement them.

• 3M Announced It Will Stop Making PFAS. What Does This Mean For Water Providers?

  Earlier this week 3M announced that it will stop making PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), a group of thousands of chemicals it has produced for decades, by 2025. 3M’s announcement begs the questions of why the company is taking this action now, and what does it mean for water providers across the country. While there may not be one simple answer to the first question, it seems that 3M’s past actions have finally caught up to the company and that the legal efforts to expose the harms of PFAS, dating back to the first case in 1999, as laid out in the movie Dark Waters, have led to significant change.

• Water Quality Is Not A Guarantee We often take our drinking water for granted. We always have access to running water, so we don't think much more about it. However, quality water is not always a guarantee. In fact, a number of cities are having issues with their water right now. The government creates laws to protect drinking water, and the EPA determines guidelines for how to ensure safe drinking water. Unfortunately, water quality issues may still arise that put you and your family at risk for disease — or worse. Let me share some of the most serious risks to your drinking water and how to solve them.
• Celebrating 50 Years Of (Mostly) Clean Water October 18, 1972, the day the Clean Water Act (CWA) became law, was undeniably a pivotal moment for the state of water quality in America. From where we stand now, 50 years later, it's hard to imagine a time when polluters were dumping contaminants freely into environmental waters — enough to set a river on fire! Here we recall the six key 1972 amendments that defined the CWA, accompanied by some recent themes related to each one.
• Does Your Waterbody Need A Doctor?

  Just as you go to the doctor in the case of a bacterial infection — typically resolved with a round of antibiotics along with monitoring to assess symptoms and tests to prove good health — your lake or waterbody must be treated similarly for its bacteria problem. It’s not one pill and then you’re cured.

• Judge Denies 3M’s Attempts To Invoke The Government Contractor Defense In AFFF Multi-District Litigation

  The government contractor defense is a doctrine of federal common law that recognizes, under some circumstances, contractors should be shielded from liability when they build equipment for the government. On September 15, 2022, Judge Richard Mark Gergel of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina denied 3M’s attempt to use this defense to evade liability for harm caused by “forever chemicals” it manufactured — per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — that were contained in aqueous film forming foams (AFFF).

• How To Destroy A 'Forever Chemical' — Scientists Are Discovering Ways To Eliminate PFAS

  PFAS chemicals seemed like a good idea at first. As Teflon, they made pots easier to clean starting in the 1940s. They made jackets waterproof and carpets stain-resistant. Food wrappers, firefighting foam, even makeup seemed better with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Then tests started detecting PFAS in people’s blood.