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Overview presentation on ORD’s Technical Assistance Program for Emerging Contaminants

Microplastic contamination raises concerns in drinking water quality due to difficulties in removing them during treatment and potential for contaminant leaching. EPA’s Office of Research and Development is interested in developing sampling and analytical methods for microp...

EPA is developing new, rapid methods for monitoring water quality at beaches to determine adequacy of water quality for swimming. The methods being developed rely upon quantitive polymerase chain reaction technology. They will permit real time decisions regarding beach closures...

This is a presentation to the Water Treatment Interagency Working Group and is a summary of EPA/ORDs water sensor research effort, focusing on drinking water applications. 

Water quality standards are important for protecting and restoring the condition of lakes, rivers, estuaries, and other water bodies in the United States. Given that nutrient pollution continues to be a widespread problem in aquatic systems, the development of numeric nutrient cr...

Excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) in lakes can lead to eutrophication, hypoxia, and algal blooms that may harm aquatic life and people.  Some U.S. states have established numeric water quality criteria for nutrients to protect surface waters.  However...

New chemical formulations are being tested to replace PFAS-containing fire-fighting foams in several applications, including systems designed to protect aviation fuels, weapons, chemical tankers, and large petroleum tanks. The current efforts are focused on identifying and synthe...

Following Executive Order 14072 issued in April 2022, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office of Management and Budget, and Department of Commerce published the final National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions (National Strategy) in J...

Historic droughts in western states driven by anthropogenic warming have resulted in an unprecedented increase in wildfire frequency and area burned. In the last few decades, fire acres burned in the United States have more than doubled, with concomitant increased risk to human h...

EPA Wildfire Research: Impacts on Air and Water Quality WESTAR-WRAP Spring Business Meeting 2024, Riverside, California Wildland fire smoke impacts millions of people in the United States every year. The EPA’s Office of Research and Development is addressing our increasingl...

This study characterized Bacillus globigii (BG) as a Bacillus anthracis Sterne (BAS) surrogate for wastewater treatment-related studies of UV inactivation, adsorption onto powdered activated carbon (PAC), and bioaerosol emission. The inactivation of BG was faster than that of BAS...

The number of gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) observed along the United States Northwest Atlantic region has been increasing for decades. These colonial animals often haul-out on beaches seasonally in numbers ranging from a few individuals to several thousands. While these larger...

Stream macroinvertebrate assemblages are shaped by natural and human-related factors that operate through complex hierarchical pathways. Quantifying these relationships can support stream ecological assessment. We applied a structural equation modeling framework to evaluate hypot...

Consideration of PFAS precursors is necessary in order to close the gap between targeted PFAS analysis and a comprehensive quantification of total PFAS. However, current understanding is limited, and there are many misconceptions and questions: where are PFAS precursors found? Ar...

  The negative effects of nutrient pollution in streams, rivers, and downstream waterbodies remain widespread global problems. Understanding the cost-effectiveness of different strategies for mitigating nutrient pollution is critical to making informed decisions and definin...

Phosphorus causes nutrient pollution in lentic water systems, which act as a reservoir of phosphorus since it is stored within the sediments of these waterbodies. The effects of phosphorus pollution include harmful algal bloom events, hypoxia of waterbodies, and impairment of dri...

Historically, communities have used gray infrastructure—systems of gutters, pipes, and tunnels—to move stormwater away from where we live to treatment plants or straight to local water bodies.  The gray infrastructure in many areas is aging, populations are increasing, and its ex...

Understanding and predicting the quality of inland waters are challenging, particularly in the context of intensifying climate extremes expected in the future. These challenges arise partly due to complex processes that regulate water quality, and arduous and expensive data colle...

This presentation was developed to provide background and insights on ORD's research related to Tucson International Airport Area (TIAA) Superfund Site. The focus of ORD's research at this site currently is on treatment options for spent media used to treat groundwater impacted b...

Benthic rapid assessment tools are needed to close the gap between sample collection and analysis so managers can better evaluate ecological response to management actions and environmental conditions. Sediment profile imaging (SPI) captures the top centimeters of sediment in cro...

EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) is partnering with a community in the Chesapeake Bay region, Crisfield, Maryland, to co-develop research addressing climate-related flooding and erosion issues incorporating natural infrastructure comprised of coastal resources...

Along urban streams and rivers, various processes, including road salt application, sewage leaks, and weathering of the built environment, contribute to novel chemical cocktails made up of metals, salts, nutrients, and organic matter. Due to heterogeneous land use and a myriad of...

“Ecosystem services” are the benefits ecosystems provide to people. These benefits include providing food, clean air, clean water, recreation, and many other services that provide explicit or intrinsic values to people and communities. Investments in Chesapeake Bay re...

Edge-of-field management practices designed to reduce nutrient pollution in waterways may support or alter critical habitat and ecosystem services in and around agricultural systems. Information on both target and non-target effects is needed to support management decisions as la...

Should biosolids be contaminated with an intentional malicious release or natural outbreak of Bacillus anthracis spores, a water resource recovery facility (WRRF) may need to consider if their treatment processes can sufficiently inactivate this pathogen. Three methods commonly e...