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REMOVING ORGANIC CONTAMINANTS OF REGULATORY INTEREST WITH MEMBRANE PROCESSES: USEPA'S SCREENING STUDIES
Citation:
Speth*, T F., M L. Magnuson*, C J. Parrett*, C A. Kelty*, AND D J. Williams*. REMOVING ORGANIC CONTAMINANTS OF REGULATORY INTEREST WITH MEMBRANE PROCESSES: USEPA'S SCREENING STUDIES. Presented at KIWA, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands, 9/19/2003.
Description:
The 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act require the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to establish a list of unregulated microbiological and chemical contaminants to aid in priority-setting for the Agency's drinking water program. This list, known as the Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) is the primary source from which future regulated drinking water contaminants will be selected. In order for a contaminant to be selected for regulation, several requirements must be met. Namely, there must be sufficient data documenting adverse health effects associated with exposure to the contaminant, a suitable analytical method must be available, it must occur in the environment on a national scale at significant concentrations, and there must be cost-effective techniques to treat the contaminated water. The current CCL contains a large number of synthetic organic chemicals, such as pesticides and industrial solvents. With regard to determining whether there are cost-effective treatment techniques for these organic compounds, the USEPA is conducting bench-scale screening studies. Although these studies will not lead to full-scale design and costing information, they will help with determining where limited research monies will be spent. For membrane processes, the screening-level experiments are being conducted with a FilmTec low-pressure spiral-wound reverse osmosis membrane that is being fed a spiked groundwater at multiple pressures and recoveries. The membrane results, to date, will be presented, along with shorter discussions of the analogous activated carbon, conventional treatment, and chemical softening screening studies.