SOURCE WATER CONTAMINATION RESOURCES

• 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.

• Flood Maps Show U.S. Vastly Underestimates Contamination Risk At Old Industrial Sites

  In 2019, researchers at the U.S. GAO investigated climate-related risks at the 1,571 most polluted properties in the country, also known as Superfund sites on the federal National Priorities List. They found an alarming 60% were in locations at risk of climate-related events, including wildfires and flooding. As troubling as those numbers sound, our research shows that that’s just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

• U.S. PFAS Analytical Instrumentation Market Expected To Generate Profound Growth Over Next 7 Years

  The current slope of the U.S. PFAS analytical instrumentation market advancement is steep due to U.S. EPA plans to propose water and wastewater regulations for PFAS. Additionally, some of the key drivers include an increased awareness about the widespread prevalence of PFAS contamination, public outrage, funding, and litigation scares.

• To Reduce Harmful Algal Blooms And Dead Zones, The U.S. Needs A National Strategy For Regulating Farm Pollution

  Midsummer is the time for forecasts of the size of this year’s “dead zones” and algal blooms in major lakes and bays. Will the Gulf of Mexico dead zone be the size of New Jersey, or only as big as Connecticut? Will Lake Erie’s bloom blossom to a human health crisis, or just devastate the coastal economy?

• General Considerations For Treating Water For Difficult Pollutants

  As a matter of course, we normally consider removing various pollutants by direct means such as microbial degradation, chemical treatment that results in a change in the pollutant in some way that is to our benefit (usually oxidation/reduction), or in some manner that results in products easily removed such as gases, various precipitants, or even degraded compounds that are no longer toxic. Some methods are entirely physical, such as centrifugation and filtration, even settling; others are semi-hybrid measures, such as exploitation of various adsorption criteria that do not require chemical change.

• PFAS Contamination At Airports Is A Rising Concern

  When aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, was introduced 50 years ago, its effectiveness at firefighting made it popular with emergency personnel at airports and military bases. Chemical compounds called perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) found in AFFF repelled both oil and water and smothered the flames quickly. AFFF created a foam blanket that put out fires and provided additional protection by suppressing fuel vapors and preventing reignition. Its use quickly spread, not just to put out fires but in equipment testing, training exercises, and during fuel spills as a preventative measure.

• 11,000 Liters Of Water To Make One Liter Of Milk? New Questions About The Freshwater Impact Of NZ Dairy Farming

  Water scarcity and water pollution are increasingly critical global issues. Water scarcity is driven not only by shortages of water, but also by rendering water unusable through pollution. Over the past few decades, nutrient and sediment emissions into waterways have increased, driven by agricultural and horticultural intensification.

• How Prevalent And Dangerous Is Pesticide Contamination?

  Add pesticides to the list of contaminants that are prevalent in U.S. drinking water and can cause severe health impacts, including cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

• Calling On Utilities To Combat Legionella

  The risk level linked to delivered drinking water from municipal utilities is very small, even if some high-profile examples of failure (see Flint, MI) have degraded public confidence to a degree. Our treatment professionals usually hit their targets, so the onus then shifts to the research and guidance that determines the safe level of various constituents through U.S. EPA protocols. But there is one contaminant that rulemaking hasn’t quite caught up to and which is downright deadly — Legionella pneumophila.

• Taking The "Forever" Out Of PFAS: The Future Of PFAS Remediation

  As PFAS treatment technologies continue to emerge, CDM Smith reviews some considerations for the existing options — and introduces a new one.