The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) has partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to study per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the influent, effluent, and sludges of nine water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) with permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) to discharge to surface waters.  These facilities are located across the Commonwealth and include WRRFs with a range of average daily flow from 40,000 to 18 million gallons per day.  None of the facilities are industrial WRRFs although several have approved pretreatment programs to permit industrial waste discharges into the WRRF.

The study kicked off earlier this year with a series of meetings between MassDEP and the WRRFs volunteering to have their wastewater and sludges analyzed for PFAS. USGS has developed a sampling plan which includes four quarterly sampling events as well as PFAS analysis of the upstream and downstream waters to which these facilities discharge.  Most of the sludge testing will be done according to EPA Method 1633 which is not yet multi-lab validated, however, USGS will be working with the laboratory that performed the initial validation for the new EPA testing method for non-aqueous substrates.  One of the sampling rounds will include Total Oxidized Precursor Assay (TOPA) for influent wastewater and ambient waters. A data report is expected in 2024.

MassDEP anticipates expanding on the current USGS project scope in 2023 to further analyze the data.  MassDEP would like to conduct an independent analysis and comparison of EPA Method 1633 and TOPA results and a loading analysis based on flow through the WRRFs and in the rivers as well as possibly testing for PFAS in upstream locations in the collection systems. A separate study of PFAS in surface waters in Massachusetts was performed in 2020 and the report is available here. Also, MassDEP has been collecting PFAS in residuals analyses for over two years; the data are available publicly in an online database here.

In Massachusetts, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has primacy for issuing NEPDES permits however the MassDEP is very involved in reviewing testing at WRRFs and has initiated a Stakeholder process for PFAS in residuals.