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Surface Disposal of Waste Water Treatment Plant Biosludge – an Important Source of Perfluorinated Compound Contamination in the Environment?
Citation:
Lindstrom, A., M. Strynar, L. McMillan, D. Knappe, E. Arevalo, S. Wing, A. Lowman, M. Serre, AND P. Jat. Surface Disposal of Waste Water Treatment Plant Biosludge – an Important Source of Perfluorinated Compound Contamination in the Environment? SETAC North America Meeting, Vancouver, BC, CANADA, November 09 - 13, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
With more than a decade of intensive scientific research and increasing regulatory pressure worldwide, the sources of perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAA) in the environment and routes of human exposure still need to be fully characterized. Several studies have documented PFAA contamination associated with the agricultural use of biosolids and biosludges that have been contaminated with wastes from industrial chemical production facilities. Other studies have shown that even typical municipal waste water treatment plant (WWTP) biosolids can contain elevated levels of PFAAs and that these contaminants can migrate to food crops grown on biosolid amended soils. The current study describes an investigation in the Cape Fear River Basin in North Carolina where we track PFAA concentrations in surface water relative to municipal WWTP effluents and biosolid land application sites. Elevated PFAA concentrations (100s ng/L) were regularly measured downstream of specific WWTPs outfalls in the watershed. Subbasins with biosolid application sites from these particular WWTPs also had elevated PFAA concentrations in surface water, with levels often exceeding the EPA’s provisional health advisory levels of 200 ng/L for PFOS and 400 ng/L for PFOA in drinking water. Sludge supernatants and settled solids from these particular treatment plants were also found to have elevated levels of PFOS and other PFAAs. In contrast, surface water in subbasins without permitted application sites tended to have low or background levels of PFOS, PFOA, and related PFAAs. These data suggest that land application of biosludges from specific municipalities in this Basin leads to the distribution of toxic, persistent, and bioaccumulative materials which may then contaminate drinking water sources, agricultural products, and wildlife resources.