WaterWorld Newscast - Dec. 9, 2019

Residents in a New York neighborhood were awakened by a nasty surprise last week when a blockage in a 42-inch sewer main near JFK airport caused raw sewage to back up into people's homes. The suspected culprit: congealed cooking grease, although an official investigation is underway. According to the city's calculations, seventy-four homes were affected. During a visit to the Ozone Park neighborhood last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the City of New York, through NYC Emergency Management, will use emergency procurement to hire contractors to clean homes affected by the sewer main blockage. Drinking water was not affected.

Residents in the rural community of McDowell County, West Virginia, will have much needed access to reliable, clean water, thanks to newly installed water-generating Hydropanels at the local food bank. The technology, developed by Zero Mass Water, makes clean water from air and sunlight. It does not require a power source and generates no waste. The 24 panels at the Five Loaves and Two Fishes Food Bank will produce about 950 gallons of water per month. The project was made possible through a partnership between Zero Mass Water, human rights organization DigDeep, and one2one USA Foundation, a nonprofit that allows individual donors to develop and fund programs they care about. The three organizations hope to replicate this model in marginalized communities across the country.

In Hershey, Pa., Derry Township Municipal Authority is planning major energy efficiency improvements at its Clearwater Road Wastewater Treatment Facility. The $15 million upgrade project will include a combined heat and power facility capable of burning biogas, which will integrate into the facility's existing electrical and heating system. Other improvements include a conveyance system to transport gas throughout the facility, sludge blending tank enhancements to maximize energy recovery through biogas generation, and secondary digester modifications for future conversion to a primary digester. The upgrades will enable the wastewater treatment facility to increase biogas power generation from 280 kilowatts per hour to 1,600, significantly reducing its carbon footprint. The design phase of the project, which is led by environmental engineering firm Brown and Caldwell, will run through May 2020, with construction scheduled to begin by the fall.

A single toilet flush can take anywhere from 1.5 to 5 gallons of water. Globally, 37 billion gallons of water are used every day -- just for flushing toilets. But researchers from Penn State believe they may have a way to reduce that by half. They've developed a new spray-on coating that is so slippery it makes toilet bowls essentially self-cleaning. The liquid-entrenched smooth surface (LESS) coating is a two-step process. The first spray, created from molecularly grafted polymers, creates a smooth, liquid-repellent foundation. The second spray lubricates the tiny, hairlike molecules that form on the dried foundation layer. The ultra-slippery surface repels liquid, sludge, and even bacteria. And it only needs a fraction of the water that's required of today's toilets. The researchers hope their work will contribute to water sustainability efforts around the world.

As concern about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) mounts, further spurred by the recent release of the film Dark Waters, it is important to take stock of what we know and do not know about these chemicals. Here to discuss further is Battelle's PFAS program manager Amy Dindal. Amy, thanks for joining us.

Amy, Battelle has been researching PFAS and its effects for over a decade. What have you learned?

[AMY DINDAL] You're welcome, Angela. Thank you for having me.

Amy, Battelle has been researching PFAS and its effects for over a decade. What have you learned?

[AMY DINDAL] As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, we really have at our core mission of science for societal benefit. So this complex issue of PFAS really fits within our DNA. We've been investing significantly over the last year in particular, looking at different technologies and solutions for PFAS whether it be remediation, monitoring, or assessment. And what we've learned is that these substances are significantly different than other environmental contaminants that we've had to deal with in the past. It's that carbon-fluorine bond that makes them so useful in so many different applications which also makes them very difficult to remediate.

Earlier this year, Battelle received accreditation for testing four new PFAS compounds in its lab in Massachusetts, making it the leading PFAS testing lab in the country. What are some of the lab's capabilities?

[AMY DINDAL] It's interesting because the analysis of PFAS continues to be an evolving landscape -- with the ever-changing regulations and different PFAS compounds that we're targeting -- that changes the methods and the qualities that go into those methods and different requirements that we have. The other thing that's challenging about this is the different matrices that are there to be looked at. We have traditional matrices like groundwater and soil and sediment, but because of the interest in PFAS and how it's entering our environment, there are things like landfill leachate and biosolids, which are much more complex. Our laboratory there, as you mentioned, in Norwell, Mass., it is an accredited laboratory that can work nationwide for the Department of Defense, and we also have accreditation in many other states as well. And as a research organization, we are also focused on doing method optimization and new method development. In fact, at our Columbus, Ohio, headquarters, we're working on things like developing signatures of PFAS in different source materials and also developing assays to look at total fluorine and total PFAS in different environmental matrices.

As you mentioned earlier, we know that the properties that make PFAS so useful also make them nearly impossible to remove. How can water and wastewater treatment providers hope to address this water quality challenge?

[AMY DINDAL] It's interesting because water and wastewater treatment providers are in a very difficult position because they are secondary receivers of the PFAS compounds; they're not using them themselves or generating them as part of the projects that they're doing, but it's rather the source of the materials that they're receiving are containing the PFAS materials. So fortunately for drinking water treatment, some of the traditional techniques that are used for treating other contaminants, like granular activated carbon or ion exchange resins, they can be used for looking at PFAS. In the case of the wastewater treatment processes, there are some continuing concerns about what happens with those materials in the end. Incineration is a process that's used for treating those materials, but it's not known yet if there's really a deleterious effect that's happening, whether the PFAS are really truly being destroyed or not. So it's much more of a challenge from that perspective.

We know that these chemicals are persistent and accumulate in soil. What else do we know about the fate and transport of PFAS compounds and how contaminated sites can be remediated?

[AMY DINDAL] First and foremost, it's important to understand that there are almost 5,000 compounds in the class, and a lot is known about two of those compounds: PFOA and PFOS. So there is still a lot to learn and understand about it. But in general from a fate and transport standpoint, these compounds do show greater migration away from the source area and they also have more complex interactions in the environment. So it is a challenge, definitely, to deal with these compounds as opposed to other traditional contaminants that we see. Fortunately, there is a lot being done in terms of collaboration and understanding the information that's available and it's being shared with organizations like the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council, who are producing fact sheets and sharing information so that we can at least gain some knowledge together and leverage the information that's being produced in the industry. 

What is the future of PFAS research? Where are you focusing efforts right now?

[AMY DINDAL] Our priority right now is focused on complete destruction of PFAS. Those traditional approaches that I mentioned earlier -- granular activated carbon and ion exchange resins -- they transfer the PFAS material from one source to another, so you still have to address the PFAS in the materials that are absorbing them. So what we're focused on is complete destruction of the PFAS compounds (as is the industry as a whole). So, we're very encouraged by some results that we have and we're hoping to be able to share more very early in 2020. Another focus for us is the incineration area and the thermal treatment of PFAS. I mentioned that earlier as well, that there is a concern about what really is happening to these materials as they are being remediated through incineration. Are the PFAS truly being destroyed? Or are PFAS residuals remaining, such that they are in the ash or potentially being redeposited on the surrounding environment through the flue gas emissions. That's a very important area of research that we're working on as well. 

All the work you're doing right now is so important to our industry and to public health as well, and we wish you all the best of luck with that. Thank you so much for joining us today. 

[AMY DINDAL] Thank you, Angela. 

For WaterWorld magazine, I'm Angela Godwin. Thanks for watching.