EPA PFAS Science Webinars for EPA Region 1 and State & Tribal Partners

September 16 and 23, 2020

EPA description: “This virtual meeting hosted by EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) and Region 1 will consist of two mornings of webinar sessions on September 16 and September 23. The objective is to provide PFAS information and research updates to Region 1, New England state and tribal partners, and Northeast interstate organization partners. The first webinar will include an overview of ongoing PFAS research and technical support activities, analytical methods for PFAS in environmental media, and PFAS treatment in drinking water and wastewater. The second webinar will focus on more recent research topics including PFAS disposal and destruction, source emissions measurement methods and modeling air emissions for PFAS, and PFAS in biosolids.”

Agenda Topic Descriptions (click title to download copy of slide presentation)

Session 1: Overview of EPA PFAS R&D: Recent accomplishments and near-term objectives
Andrew Gillespie, Executive Lead for PFAS R&D, EPA ORD
EPA’s PFAS research and development (R&D) activities are organized around the risk paradigm—understanding human and ecological toxicity and exposures to characterize and assess risk; and understanding how to manage risk through treatment, remediation and material management techniques. This presentation will provide an overview of the different lines of R&D that EPA is conducting to address gaps and generate scientific information to enable decision makers to take action on PFAS. For more information, visit EPA’s Research on PFAS, including a list of ongoing projects and expected deliverables.

Session 2: Analytical Methods for PFAS in environmental media
Chris Impellitteri, Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Research Program, EPA ORD
This presentation will provide a summary and update on EPA analytical methods for PFAS in drinking, ground, surface and wastewaters in addition to solid samples such as soils, sediments, biosolids and tissues. Protocols for sampling and analysis of air emissions are being developed. EPA is also developing and evaluating methods for total organic fluorine, total oxidizable precursors, and non-targeted analyses. For more information, visit PFAS Analytical Methods Development and Sampling Research.

Session 3: PFAS Treatment in Drinking Water and Wastewater – State of the Science
Thomas Speth, Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response, EPA ORD
This presentation will provide an overview of ORD’s research on drinking water and wastewater treatment, including resources and capabilities that can be helpful to regions and states. It is recognized that removing PFAS from drinking water can be an expensive proposition. It is currently known that three treatment processes can be effective for PFAS removal: granular activated carbon, ion exchange resins, and high-pressure membrane systems. The optimal choice between these technologies is a balance between many factors such as water quality, PFAS to be removed, level of removal, capital cost, operating costs, operational complexity, footprint of the system, residual handling, and desire to avoid unintended consequences to other aspects of the treatment and distribution of the water. In addition, even with the choice of the optimal technology, the design of the system will impact whether it is effective or not.

Session 4: PFAS Disposal and Destruction Research
Lara Phelps, Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling, EPA ORD
This presentation will provide an update on disposal and destruction research for PFAS. These materials have many and varied pathways into waste streams including expired and disposed aqueous film forming foams (AFFF), municipal wastes, biosolid sludges at wastewater treatment plants, activated carbon or ion exchange resin from water treatment processes, contaminated soils after in situ demobilization, industrial wastewater from product manufacturing and commercial processing,
leachates from municipal and industrial landfills, and municipal and sewage waste combustor ashes. Determining the appropriate, ultimate disposal of PFAS wastes is a complex issue due to their volatility, solubility, and environmental mobility and persistence.

Session 5: Source Emissions Measurement Methods and Modeling Air Emissions, Transport and Deposition
Lara Phelps and Ben Murphy, Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling, EPA ORD
This presentation will provide an update on source emission measurement approaches and methods to support comprehensive emissions characterizations, including industrial, chemical manufacturing and thermal treatment/combustion sources. In addition, we summarize a case study investigating PFAS air emissions from a polymer processing facility near Fayetteville, NC. Using state-of-the-art property estimation and regional-scale air quality models, we predict ambient air concentrations and deposition of total PFAS and GenX within 150 km of the facility at 1 km resolution. We evaluate our model with wet and dry deposition samples of PFAS taken near the facility (< 5 km) during 2018 and quantify the uncertainty due to potentially important chemical transformations.

Session 6: PFAS in Biosolids
Marc Mills, Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response, EPA ORD
EPA both conducts and funds through research grants a variety of research projects related to PFAS in biosolids. This presentation will provide a summary of EPA’s past, ongoing and proposed research on PFAS in biosolids. Current research includes analytical method development, research on the fate of PFAS in land-applied biosolids, and sewage sludge incineration technologies. Future research will focus on management of PFAS in land application of biosolids and development and evaluation of innovative PFAS treatment technologies.