CEE Seminar: Wastewater Effluents Impact PFAS Concentrations at Drinking Water Treatment Plants: Sucralose and Predicted De facto Wastewater Reuse Levels Correlate with PFAS Levels in Surface Waters

Abstract: PFAS are organic pollutants with widespread distribution, persistence, bioaccumulation, and health risks, detectable in wastewater effluents. WWTP effluents impact over half of surface water intakes for DWTPs, leading to widespread occurrence of PFAS in surface waters used for drinking water. For a large watershed in Texas was studied, where 165 WWTP discharges and dozens of DWTP intakes provide drinking water to nearly six million people. SPFAS in WWTP effluents ranged from 50 to 200 ng/L, and surface water samples found highly correlated levels of SPFAS and sucralose. WWTP discharges were the primary source of PFAS to the Trinity River. Based upon this insight we predicted for the entire USA impacts of de facto wastewater reuse as a ubiquitous source of PFAS for thousands of DWTPs nationally. The presentation will also discuss how drinking water treatment plants are approaching PFAS treatment.

 Bio: Paul Westerhoff is a Regents Professor & Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering at Arizona State University. He has over 425 peer reviewed publications related to water. He is the deputy director of a NSF ERC for Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment and co-deputy director of the NSF Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability Center. He received several awards including the 2020 A.P. Black award from AWWA, 2019 NWRI Clarke Prize, 2013 ARCADIS/AEESP Frontier in Research Award, 2006 Paul L. Busch Award., and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2023.