Investigating Nebraska's Technical Capacity to Treat PFAS in Drinking Water
Board Location: #114
Discipline: Technology and Engineering
Subcategory: Civil/Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering
Session: 4
Chloe Yoder - Manchester University
Co-Author(s): Kaycie Lane, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Omaha, NE
Emerging contaminants of concern in drinking water such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) present a significant technical challenge in small, rural systems where advanced water treatment is often difficult to implement to target specific environmental contaminants. Water industry stakeholders such as state agencies and rural community partnership programs could benefit from a methodology that proactively identifies treatment technology gaps for not only PFAS, but other contaminants of concern. We hypothesized that publicly available data could be used to help these relevant stakeholders identify critical infrastructure gaps. Data on water system facilities, monitoring activity and regulatory actions were used in this study to examine technical treatment capacity for PFAS in the United States, with Nebraska as a case study, as a first step to identifying gaps in existing data and technical capacity. We defined technical capacity as infrastructure adequacy, systems operations, and source water adequacy. Using both federal and state-level data, we extracted, filtered, and analyzed data using Nebraska as a test data set to identify where treatment technologies for PFAS are currently available. We then examined a subset of small, groundwater systems for a more nuanced evaluation, focusing specifically on active, year-round community water system supplies with existing treatment applicable for PFAS removal. Of 1312 active PWSs in Nebraska, there are currently 441 public water systems with treatment technology in place that could theoretically remove PFAS from drinking water. In the subset analysis, it was found that PWSs had different technology deployment methods (centralized versus point-of-use), many systems had “significant deficiencies” reported in previous sanitary survey results, and that age and past presence of a water quality violation were not correlated to system treatment evaluation results. Informal stakeholder interviews with Nebraska Department of Energy and Environment, the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, and academic experts were used to contextualize the data analysis, leading to the following considerations when building technical capacity in small systems: (1) be aware of co-contaminants that impact treatment technology efficacy, (2) be aware of disposal of both solid and liquid waste streams containing PFAS, (3) consider improving managerial and operational practices prior to treatment implementation and (4) engage with water system stakeholders to contextualize sanitary survey results. Finally, the methodology developed in this study is presented as a model for utilizing publicly available data to other contaminants of concern in other states. Future studies could involve applying the model in these other contexts or improving the model through engagement with water treatment facility operators.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (Award EEC-1950597, REU Site: Sustainability of Horizontal Civil Networks in Rural Areas).
Faculty Advisor: Kaycie Lane, kaycie.lane@unl.edu
Role: Data collection, data analysis, informal stakeholder engagement, manuscript writing