SOURCE WATER CONTAMINATION RESOURCES

• 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.

• Restoring A Unique Area In Northwest Indiana

  Although discharges of toxic substances into the Great Lakes have been reduced over the last 50 years, high concentrations of contaminated sediment remain in the bottom of some rivers and harbors. These contaminants pose potential health risks to people and wildlife, and states have issued fish advisories in many Great Lakes locations.

• Multidistrict Litigation Suit For PFAS Contamination Gains Momentum

  Water system providers across the U.S. have joined a multidistrict litigation (MDL) suit claiming that their water supplies are contaminated with per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF). These chemicals have been used for decades to extinguish chemical or petroleum fires at military bases, airports, and industrial facilities. 

• Mini Superstars For Aquatic Research: Stable Isotopes

  Monitoring the nation’s water quality is a fundamental part of EPA’s work. As part of the Clean Water Act, EPA monitors the condition of U.S. waters through a program called the National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS). This is a collaborative program between EPA, states, and Tribes designed to assess the quality of the nation's coastal waters, lakes, reservoirs, rivers, streams and wetlands.

• EPA Researchers Develop Tool That Helps Water Quality Managers Meet Nutrient Load Targets

  Nutrient pollution is one of America’s most widespread, costly, and challenging environmental problems. This pollution can occur when excess amounts of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, run off from land into streams, rivers, lakes, and other water sources. To help water quality managers reduce nutrient pollution, EPA researchers developed the River Basin Export Reduction Optimization Support Tool (RBEROST), a regional online tool currently available for the Upper Connecticut River Basin that provides low-cost solutions to meet nutrient load targets.

• EPA Researchers Explore Technology To Destroy PFAS

  Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS, are a large group of human-made organic compounds with properties that make many of them toxic and persistent in the environment. PFAS have been manufactured and used since the 1940s in items such as fire-fighting foams, adhesives, cosmetics, paper products, and stain and water repellants. Until now, researchers have been unable to destroy PFAS in a way that has potential for larger scale use.