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Newsletter #69
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 Featured News

Expedited Approval of Alternative Test Procedures for the Analysis of Contaminants Under the Safe Drinking Water Act; Analysis and Sampling Procedures

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved 17 alternative testing methods for use in measuring the levels of contaminants in drinking water to determine compliance with national primary drinking water regulations. The alternative testing methods, which have been determined to be equally effective as currently approved analytical methods, will affect state, local and tribal government entities that analyze water samples for public water systems and private and municipal operators of community and non-transient non-community water systems.

EPA is utilizing its streamlined approval authority to make the these 17 optional, alternative methods available for determining contaminant concentrations in samples collected under the SDWA. EPA has published a 3-page factsheet providing a summary of the action as well as a table indicating the newly approved analytical methods and the contaminants which the method corresponds to.
PFAS Are Forever: Studies track ‘forever chemicals’ through wastewater facilities

University of New Hampshire (UNH) researchers have conducted two of the first studies in New England to show that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are ending up in the environment differently after being processed through wastewater treatment facilities, making it more challenging to set acceptable screening levels.

Researchers including Paula Mouser, associate professor of civil and environment engineering at UNH, aimed to highlight the gaps around contaminants of emerging concerns (CECs) in wastewater residuals and to stress that more research is needed to assess the impact of facility design and operation on the treatment of CECs before costly upgrades are implemented to comply with stricter drinking water standards. 

The first study, which was recently published in The Royal Society of Chemistry, investigated the distribution and fate of 24 different PFAS through six New Hampshire wastewater treatment facilities to examine how they are distributed after being treated. The study aimed to characterize PFAS in wastewater treatment influent, sludge, and effluent discharging into the Great Bay Estuary in southeastern New Hampshire. 

The second study, which was featured in the New England Water Environment Association Journal, evaluated the changes in 24 PFAS and 21 pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) during wastewater treatment and assessed the composition of PFAS in biosolids post-stabilization treatment. Recent studies have suggested PPCPs and PFAS from land-applied biosolids may accumulate in soils, agricultural crops, and food products. This study will compare the composition and concentration of PFAS from 39 biosolid samples collected from WWTFs in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Photo by: Conservation Law Foundation
Wolf Administration Announces Final PFAS Statewide Sampling Results

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has released the complete and final list of results of samples collected from their statewide sampling plan. The statewide sampling plan, which began in 2019 as part of Pennsylvania's initiative to take proactive steps to address PFAS and other contaminants, was conducted to gain a better understanding of the prevalence of PFAS within the Pennsylvania. 

DEP identified 493 public water system sources as potential sampling sites due to their proximity (within a half-mile) to potential sources of PFAS contamination, such as military bases, fire training sites, landfills, and manufacturing facilities. Of those, DEP tested 372 targeted sites and 40 sites that were not located within a half mile of a potential source of PFAS contamination to establish a baseline.

Sample analysis revealed that PFOS and PFOA were the most common, with 103 and 112 sites detecting the contaminants, respectively. Of the sites with detections, only eight PFAS were detected. Additionally, only two out of the 412 samples collected had results which were above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Health Advisory Level (HAL) of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for the combined concentrations of PFOS and PFOA.

DEP plans to utilize this data to determine how to further address PFAS, including developing an appropriate metric to remediate and protect their public water systems.

A table of the statewide sampling plan results along with additional information on PFAS can be found on PADEP's PFAS page.

File:Calendar font awesome.svg Upcoming Events

A listing of webinars, symposia, and conferences relevant to this work.
Advancing Water Reuse in Small and Disadvantaged Communities
June 29 | Webinar
This free webinar will serve as an outreach and listening session for small and disadvantaged communities and will introduce water recycling opportunities.

Examining the Importance of Corrosion Control Research Webinar
July 14 | Webinar
This webinar will feature a utility personnel who will describe their experiences implementing and modifying corrosion control treatment to comply with EPA's revised Lead and Copper Rule.

18th Annual EPA Drinking Water Workshop: Small System Challenges and Solutions
Aug 30 - Sept 2 | Virtual Workshop
This free annual drinking water workshop will provide in-depth information and training on solutions and strategies for handling small drinking water system challenges with a focus on monitoring, distribution, source, and treatment topics.

Thumbnail for version as of 11:40, 25 September 2013 Recent Publications

Drinking Water Open Access
Removing co-occurring contaminants of arsenic and vanadium with full-scale arsenic adsorptive media systems

Sorg T., Chen A., Wang L., Lytle D. (2021). Removing co-occurring contaminants of arsenic and vanadium with full-scale arsenic adsorptive media systems. AQUA — Water Infrastructure, Ecosystems and Society. doi:10.2166/aqua.2021.148.  

Why it's interesting: This paper provides a report on the effectiveness of two full-scale Adsorptive Media (AM) systems and the results of rapid small-scale column test (RSSCT) conducted on the source waters of two other facilities for the removal of arsenic and vanadium as a co-occurring contaminant (COC). This paper will also provide information on the removal of arsenic to ≤5 μg/L. 

This study utilizes data collected from USEPA's Arsenic Demonstration Program (ADP). The ADP was part of EPA's initiative for research and development of more cost-effective treatment technologies and to provide technical assistance to operators of small systems to reduce compliance cost. EPA funded 50 small, full-scale arsenic removal systems in 26 different states and provided support in the selection and permitting of the technology being demonstrated. The systems were then run for a minimum of a year under normal operating conditions to collect performance and cost data for each treatment system. The data would be used to evaluate the reliability, simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and residual production of each technology. 

Due to the growing interest for treatment technologies to remove multiple COCs and the lack of information on arsenic technologies to remove COCs, various studies have been conducted using ADP data to assess As and COCs. This paper, which will focus on AM and RSSCT systems, will mainly focus on vanadium (V) as the main COC and fluoride (F) and nitrate (NO3) as the secondary COCs.

Full-scale system studies are valuable for small drinking water systems by increasing the confidence that these will perform as designed and assist in estimating operational costs of the technology. As few states have started implementing limits of ≤5 μg/L for arsenic, many small systems may begin to struggle to comply with new limitations. These reviews of full-scale studies can aid small systems with the decision on which treatment technology is the most suitable for their system.
Drinking Water Open Access
Preparation of cellulose nanofiltration membranes and their removal of typical pollutants from drinking water

Weng R., Tian F., Huang X., Ni L., Xi B. (2021). Preparation of cellulose nanofiltration membranes and their removal of typical pollutants from drinking water. Water Supply. doi:10.2166/ws.2021.183.  

Why it's interesting: This paper examines the performance of nanofiltration (NF) membranes modified with cellulose and chitosan as the main material and investigate their removal efficiency for chloroform, nitrate, nitrogen, and hardness in drinking water under different conditions. This research will provide theoretical and technical support for the application of cellulose nanofiltration membrane in advanced treatment of drinking water. 

Nanofiltration membrane filtration is an effective method to remove inorganic pollutants such as heavy metals, salt ions, chloride, and fluoride in drinking water. Currently, the materials used to produce nanofiltration membranes mainly include polyvinylidene fluoride, polysulfone, polyamide, sulfonated polyethersulfone, and polyacrylonitrile, which are organic polymer materials. However, the process involved in developing biodegradable petrochemical polymer membranes is energy extensive. Thus, there is a need to find cheap, easily available, green, and environmentally friendly materials to replace these membranes.

Cellulose is the most extensive natural polymer material available with good physicochemical stability and biocompatibility. Cellulose membrane have shown the advantages of hydrophilicity, air permeability, solvent resistance, and biodegradability, which are not present with petroleum polymer membranes. Chitosan is also one of the most widely used materials as a membrane material because its ability to form films, allowing for a reliable, efficient, and low-cost technique for removing heavy metal ions from wastewater. This study will utilize cellulose and chitosan as the main raw material to develop three kinds of NF membrane material and analyze their morphology and separation performance. 

 Industry News

Seeking sustainable solutions for the global challenge of safe drinking water
Engineering researchers from the University of Pittsburgh will be using a $500,000 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to integrate graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4), a non-metal material that possesses antimicrobial properties when activated with visible light, into drinking water treatment devices due to its low cost and abundant resource.

Scientists develop low-cost sensor that can detect COVID-19 in wastewater
Scientists from the University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India have demonstrated a low-cost sensor that can detect fragments of the virus responsible for COVID-19 within wastewater.

NI Water taps into innovation in Water and Wastewater Treatment
Four companies based in Belfast, Northern Ireland are developing innovative technologies to increase water and wastewater treatment efficiency by utilizing data analytics, machine learning, and data driven software solutions.

Norwich leads the Vermont Initiative for Biological and Environmental Surveillance with wastewater testing
Researchers at Norwich University, St Michael’s College and the University of Vermont have partnered with municipal wastewater officials and state agency representatives to conduct wastewater surveillance for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and develop wastewater-based risk assessment tools which can be applied for COVID-19 and other environmental health hazards that may emerge in Vermont.

This low-cost smart sensor can help optimize interventions to improve water quality and public health
David Meyer, a professor at University of Toronto Engineering, Canada, has successfully developed and deployed the SmartSpout, a low-cost sensor that can attach to the spigot of a water container equipped with a purification technology measure water usage.
WaterOperator.org is a collaboration between the Rural Community Assistance Partnership and the University of Illinois, through the Illinois State Water Survey, and funded by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Innovations for Small Systems is a continuation of the newsletter previously provided by the two National Centers for Innovation in Small Drinking Water Systems: DeRISK at the University of Colorado - Boulder and WINSSS at University of Massachusetts - Amherst under a U.S. EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grant.
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