"It's important for businesses to determine their PFAS risk and plan for potential liabilities"

In addition to my role at TRC, I have a very active leadership role with the Interstate Technology & Regulatory Council (ITRC), a national coalition focused on developing tools and strategies to reduce interstate barriers to the deployment of innovative environmental technologies. I currently serve on the ITRC Board of Advisors as a representative of the Industry Affiliate members. In addition, I serve as a leader on ITRC’s PFAS Team as a co-leader of the History & Use/Naming Conventions sub-team and as a trainer for PFAS Sampling & Analysis topics. I received the 2017 and 2022 ITRC PFAS Team Member of the Year Awards for my contributions to the ITRC PFAS team.

Can you explain the current status of PFAS regulation in the U.S. and the potential implications for industries like water utilities and chemical manufacturers?

Many of the states have been the leaders in developing and enforcing PFAS regulations in drinking water, groundwater and soil

From a federal perspective, PFAS regulation in the US is in a current state of flux, with some uncertainties for the future. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) recently issued a press release stating its commitment to PFAS.  For certain, the EPA has confirmed that it intends to continue to regulate two PFAS chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), in drinking water. But, at the same time, they also intend to rescind or revise the 2024 maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for four other PFAS chemicals. Logically, this could result in fewer public water systems requiring extensive PFAS treatment systems, but it is important to remember that the states will likely continue to enforce and develop even stricter PFAS regulations. From day one, many of the states have been the leaders in developing and enforcing PFAS regulations in drinking water and other media such as groundwater and soil. This will likely continue, and therefore, EPA’s deregulation of some PFAS MCLs may not provide any relief to water utilities in those states with the PFAS regulations. 

Chemical manufacturers will similarly be impacted, and litigation will continue to be on the rise. In addition, the EPA has stated it will be moving forward with establishing effluent limitation guidelines, which will impact discharge permits of chemical manufacturers and other industries. Companies may want to evaluate PFAS in their discharges now to avoid any surprises; understanding PFAS in these discharges will allow companies to begin to consider how best available technologies and effluent limitation guidelines could impact their operations and future budgets. 

Finally, industry could be impacted depending on where the CERCLA Superfund Hazardous Substances designation lands for PFOA and PFOS; this Biden CERCLA ruling is in the midst of litigation by industry, and the EPA will be making decisions in the near future over whether to maintain or repeal this ruling. 

Could you elaborate on the strategies for PFAS risk liability assessment and management plans that you have worked on at TRC?

It is important for businesses to determine and understand their potential PFAS risk profile and begin to consider how to manage potential PFAS liabilities, in order to be prepared for and to be able to respond to the regulations. Understanding a PFAS risk profile may also become important for buyers, sellers, lenders, investors, and insurers during transaction due diligence. The PFAS risk profile could be dependent upon the specific PFAS in use, as not all PFAS are equal in terms of risk or regulatory requirements. TRC’s comprehensive PFAS Liability Assessment/Management services can help identify if and where a business needs to focus resources on PFAS. 

We work with our clients to ensure corporate buy-in and collaboration with the team of experts on the strategic approach. Each operation in the company has to be vested in the PFAS risk/liability assessment process. So, even if a company hires a firm like TRC for this assistance, an in-house team needs to be involved every step of the way to help with the collaboration; this includes the appropriate company leaders, EHS Managers, and internal and/or external legal counsel.  

A PFAS management plan would ultimately be developed, if needed, based on the risk characterisation and prioritisation for each facility using the conceptual risk/process model. It would start with a summary of where the PFAS risks lie and the conceptual model we develop. It will include recommended strategies to address the identified risks strategically and cost-effectively. This could include different mitigation actions such as replacement with PFAS-free alternatives, it could mean re-engineering of the process to remove legacy PFAS, it could mean some form of treatment or modification to a treatment system to meet existing or future PFAS regulatory limits or wastewater discharge requirements. The risk management plan could also include goal-oriented sampling plans for environmental media, industrial materials, processes, raw materials, and wastes. Having a sampling strategy and plan proactively in place will save time and resources when the need arises or in response to requests from a governmental authority or even a supply chain vendor.

Performing a comprehensive liability review can help identify potential trigger points in a company’s business and provide support in developing a strategy to mitigate that risk.

You’ve researched the leachability of PFAS from environmental sampling products. Can you share your findings and their potential impact on sampling protocols?

TRC and Pace Analytical Laboratory embarked on a study to evaluate the potential for PFAS in commonly used sampling materials to cross-contaminate environmental samples (e.g., drinking water, groundwater, soil, etc.). Our goal was to determine if these sampling materials could be leaching PFAS. Our specific objectives were (1) to determine the relative concentrations of PFAS in leachates of each of the tested sampling materials; and (2) to determine the types of PFAS that can potentially be transferred from the tested materials to samples during the sampling process.

Some of the products we looked at included the following:

• Different types of tubing: high density polyethylene (HDPE), low density polyethylene (LDPE), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, or Teflon™), silastic, and silcone
• Aluminium foil, adhesive notes, field books, bubble wrap, sample labels
• Tyvek, passive diffusion bag sampler, nitrile gloves, bailer line, bladders used in groundwater sampling pumps (PTFE & polyethylene)
• Bentonite (to determine if PFAS could be in the coating on time-released bentonite)

We garnered the following conclusions from this study:

In general, this study demonstrated that low levels of PFAS may leach off of some of the different sampling materials. However, this study was also able to demonstrate that PFAS did not leach off of several different materials. 

Samples which did yield leachable detections of PFAS should be considered conservative measurements as all leachates were generated over a 24-hour time period. In reality, samples will not be in contact with these materials for 24-hours and in most cases, contact time will be significantly less (i.e., minutes). 

One useful benefit from the study is the determination of the different types of PFAS that may be associated with a particular sampling material. These data may be useful in cases where equipment contamination may be suspected. Knowing the types of PFAS that may leach off of a particular sampling material may also be helpful in the forensic evaluation of sample data. 

The importance of collecting equipment blanks during any sampling event is not diminished because of the information gained from this study. In fact, this study demonstrated that different manufacturers of the same type of tubing (PTFE, HDPE, and LDPE) may yield variable concentrations of different PFAS and different batches of the same product from the same manufacturer may yield variable concentrations of different PFAS due to quality and process variability.    

What are some of the most promising PFAS remediation technologies in development, and what challenges remain in scaling them up?

TRC has been involved in the development of an innovative in-situ PFAS remediation technology and recently received the 2024 Environmental Business Journal Business Achievement Award for our work on this technology. This technology, called ART-PFAS, was co-invented by TRC’s Nidal Rabah, PhD and Accelerated Remediation Technologies, Inc. (ART) (patent pending). ART-PFAS is a green, cost-effective and efficient technology that can concurrently remediate PFAS and volatile organic compound impacts in groundwater and soil in the saturated zone and capillary fringe. ART-PFAS (owned by ART) is the only proven active in-situ alternative to pump-and-treat to remediate PFAS-impacted groundwater.  

ART-PFAS was implemented at a site in New Jersey by retrofitting an existing air sparging/soil vapor extraction (AS/SVE) system with an ART-PFAS well. Within a few months, PFAS concentrations in groundwater of 2,000-3,000 nanograms per litre (ng/L) were reduced by 50 to 100% in the test well and up to 40% in a monitoring well. PFOA and PFOS concentrations that ranged from over 400 to 1,000 ng/L were successfully reduced below EPA drinking water MCLs of 4 ng/L. PFAS concentrations in soil were reduced by 50 to 65%. PFAS was enriched by 100-300 times in the recovered foam (vs. groundwater), while generating only about 50 gallons of residual liquid after circulating over 500,000 gallons of groundwater (10,000 times less water volume vs. pump-and-treat for aboveground management).