If you’ve been around long enough, you probably remember when the news first broke that asbestos, which had kept people safe for nearly a century, could actually kill us. Suddenly asbestos awareness was everywhere, particularly in schools.
The U.S. EPA recently proposed an Information Collection Rule (ICR) focused on PFAS in wastewater influent, effluent, and biosolids. This post will cover the critical highlights for Pace® customers. For a deeper dive, you can watch the webinar on-demand.
A Discussion with Keith Sturgeon, Pace® POPs Department Manager
Pace® recently delivered a live webinar titled “INTERPRETING VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS (VOC) DATA IN AIR.” This webinar was widely attended and those of you who participated are familiar with the challenges discussed. In this blog, we seek to outline a few of the questions tackled during the webinar.
Issuing federally enforceable limits for PFAS in drinking water was a key action outlined in the U.S. EPA’s 2021-2024 PFAS Strategic Roadmap. In 2023, the agency released its initial proposal. Then, after considering more than 120,000 public comments and a review of the final rule by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the final rule was released on April 10, 2024. In this post, we review the different aspects of this rule and its implications for our customers.
As the U.S. summer vacation season heats up, now would be a good time for hotels, spas, health clubs, and other facilities catering to a water-minded clientele to test their water systems for opportunistic waterborne pathogens. According to the latest waterborne disease outbreak surveillance report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 62% of waterborne disease outbreaks originated in recreational water systems. Of course, recreational water–associated outbreaks can happen year-round, but 31% of these cases occurred in June or July.
The quality of data generated by the laboratory is only as good as the quality of the sample collected in the field. The Chain of Custody form is a critical document that guarantees the integrity and reliability of samples collected for analysis. This form documents every stage of the process and assigns responsibility for the sample at each stage. It is particularly crucial in legal proceedings where the analytical data may be used as evidence.
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, otherwise known as PFAS, have become a frequent topic of discussion for water treatment and resource managers. This article examines the often-overlooked role stormwater runoff plays in propagating the PFAS problem.
Once the U.S. EPA’s final NPDWR (National Primary Drinking Water Regulations) for PFAS are published, state limits will need to be equal to or below those set by the EPA. As we wait for the EPA to publish its final rule, we thought it might be interesting to do a level-set on where drinking water limits stand at the state level.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Legionnaires’ disease is on the rise in the United States. In 2000, roughly 1000 cases were reported. That number ballooned to 10,000 cases in 2018, the last year for which data is available. The CDC issued a 2021 report on waterborne diseases, but this report only looks at cases of Legionellosis associated with an outbreak. Most cases of waterborne diseases, including Legionnaires’ disease, are sporadic, i.e., not epidemiologically linked to other cases by time, location of exposure to water, and type of illness.
