Wednesday, March 23, 2022
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM (CDT)
PFAS Seminar: PFAS Treatability & Management: An Example of Wastewater Utility and Landfill Collaboration
Kansas City Convention Center - Room 2102 AB

The federal government and certain states have begun to regulate perfluorinated compounds, an emerging contaminant, in drinking water. Regulatory constraints have begun to arise for wastewater and biosolids. Many states are surveying PFAS to assess needs. Utilities are beginning to prepare. This presentation will step through the assessment of landfill leachate and other wastewater sources that potentially contain PFAS, treatability experiences, and one example from the Midwest where wastewater regulations have advanced. The local POTW was instructed by state regulators to test their outfall in the spring of 2018, and to develop a source identification and elimination plan for potential sources of PFAS in their Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP). As a proactive measure, an indirect industrial discharger contracted us to provide consultancy and analysis of their two landfills. A treatability study was completed assessing feasibility of on-site treatment at one facility. Several treatment technologies were screened then tested at bench-scale. It was decided to shift the discussion to the municipal level, considering treatability difficulties with the leachate matrix and high capital and O&M cost estimates. The POTW expressed interested in a collaborative approach utilizing WWTP-based PFAS treatment or polishing at one or more points within its treatment systems. Data collection and special sampling were completed in 2020, and bench-scale treatability (Filter Effluent, Supernatant Return) was complete in Spring 2021. Supplemental bench-scale testing assessing different pretreatment and RSSCT methodologies are in progress, with pilot-scale on-site testing proposed for Spring 2022. Indirect and centralized treatment options will be reviewed in detail, identifying key issues also relevant to local utilities.

William Meinert Ivan Cooper
.75