The Occoquan Reservoir supplies water for a million people in Northern Virginia and right now, it exceeds the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contaminant levels for potentially dangerous chemicals.
A project is trying to find where the forever chemicals are coming from.
Stanley Grant is a professor at Virginia Tech and director of the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory. He told WTOP’s Luke Lukert they are looking for how this group of chemicals, known as PFAS, keep showing up in the water supply.
These chemicals are used to make nonstick pans, Gore-Tex jackets, other clothing and legacy firefighting foams. They can also increase the risks of certain cancers and developmental issues in children.
“They don’t break down very easily,” Grant said.
And because of that, his team is being tasked with finding out the source of these chemicals.
The research team is using advanced computer modeling that can test scenarios for how effectively different solutions might reduce PFAS in the water supply.
“There’s a possibility that industrial sources that are discharging to the wastewater could be a major contributor to this,” Grant said.
It could also be due to firefighting foams and consumer products used every day.
Grant’s team is also diving into the costs and benefits of different ways to control and treat PFAS.
“If we can demonstrate that dialing down that source would have a significant impact on the drinking water supply, we might be able to solve this in a very short order,” Grant said.
Because these particles are so small and appear in relatively low doses, removing PFAS can cost water utility companies hundreds of millions of dollars, jacking up water bills.
The project is funded in part by the Water Research Foundation. Project results are expected by 2027.
“A lot of streams and reservoirs, drinking water supplies around the country are facing similar problems, and groundwater as well,” Grant said.
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