"Sewage treatment plants around the country and many of the factories that send them wastewater face a new and shifting array of regulations over how they handle PFAS.

The reach of federal and state policies to reduce health risks from PFAS eventually could be broad because the chemicals are used in thousands of products and found in the bodies of 98% of people in the US.

When human and industrial waste is flushed into public sewage systems and treated, the result is sludge, which increasingly is found by emerging chemical detection technologies to contain PFAS. Some states are moving to limit PFAS in the millions of tons of this sludge, or biosolids, spread on farms, golf courses, and other lands, and used to reclaim mines, remediate contaminated sites, and build roads.

The Environmental Protection Agency is deciding whether to regulate wastewaters and biosolids with PFAS, a process that would take years. In the meantime, the states that already regulate other exposures to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are beginning to control biosolids and the upstream industries that release wastewater containing the chemicals into public sewer systems, six water officials and attorneys said during recent interviews."

Pat Rizzuto reports for Bloomberg Environment May 24, 2022. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"PFAS Pose ‘Watershed’ Moment For Superfund Liability" (E&E News) [3]