Joint Committee on Drinking Water Treatment Units

PFAS article & UCMR-4 data

  • 1.  PFAS article & UCMR-4 data

    Posted 07-06-2021 04:10 PM




    Good Afternoon DWTU JC Members,
     
    Here are a couple of additional resources that may be of interest to you. First, Regu has provided the following link to a recent study on the effectiveness of POUs on PFAS contaminants:
     
    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00004
     
    Second,  Bob Powitz has forwarded the following information from our previous JC member Dr. Bill Anderson (University of Waterloo):
    Hi allâmany of you will be familiar with the USEPA Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rules (UCMR). These are prepared in association
    with the
    Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) which is updated every
    five years . The UCMR 4 monitoring period has ended and data were published in April 2021.  A 13 page summary is available at:

    https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-10/documents/ucmr4-data-summary.pdf . The samples were collected from
    treated drinking water and included ten
    cyanotoxins and manganese,
    among others. Out of more than 34,000 samples, total microcystin was detected above the minimum reporting level (MRL) only 8 times; however,
    anatoxin-a was reported in excess of its MRL 132 times,
    and cylindrospermopsin 13 times. The results for microcystin and anatoxin-a probably arenât as suspicious as appears at first  glance. It is important to note that microcystin
    is effectively inactivated by chlorine whereas anatoxin-a is not. It is a bit more difficult to tease out information from the manganese data as the âreference concentrationâ was 300 Âg/L whereas the Health Canada MAC for total manganese is 120 Îg/L and the
    aesthetic objective (AO) is 20 Îg/L.
     Under UCMR 4, Public Water Systems conducted sampling for assessment monitoring

    (âList 1â) contaminants as shown below:

    Â       
    10 cyanotoxins
    including:
    total microcystins, microcystin-LA, microcystin-RR, microcystin-LF, microcystin-YR, microcystin-LR, microcystin-LY, nodularin, cylindrospermopsin, and anatoxin-a

    Â       
    20 additional contaminants including: germanium, manganese, alphahexachlorocyclohexane, profenofos, chlorpyrifos, tebuconazole, dimethipin, total permethrin (cis- & trans-)
    ethoprop tribufos, oxyfluorfen, HAA5, HAA6Br, HAA9, 1-butanol, 2-propen-1-ol, 2-methoxyethanol, butylated hydroxyanisole, o-toluidine, and quinoline

    Bill
    __________________________________________________
    Background
     
    âEPA uses the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) program to collect nationally representative data for
    contaminants suspected to be present in drinking water,
    but that do not have regulatory standards . UCMR 4 requires monitoring for 30 chemicals between 2018 and 2020. This monitoring is used by EPA to understand the frequency
    and level of occurrence of unregulated contaminants in the nationâs public water systems (PWSs). Every five years EPA develops a new list of UCMR contaminants, largely based on the Contaminant Candidate List (CCL). The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) calls
    for EPA to:


    Require monitoring for no more than 30 contaminants per 5-year cycle
    Collect data from large PWSs (i.e., those that serve more than 10,000 people)
    Collect data from a representative sample of small PWSs (i.e., those serving less than or equal to 10,000 people)
    Store analytical results in the National Contaminant Occurrence Database (NCOD).â
     
     




    Monica H. Leslie, MPH
    Operations Manager, Standards Tel : +1-734-827-5643 Email:
    mleslie@xxxxxxx NSF International
    789 N. Dixboro Road Ann Arbor, MI 48105 USA
    www.nsf.org
     
     
    NOTICE: This email and its contents/attachments may be confidential and are intended solely for the individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the named addressee or if this email is otherwise received in error, please immediately
    notify the sender without reading it and do not take any action based on its contents or otherwise copy or disclose it to anyone. Any opinions or views expressed in this transmission are solely of the author and do not necessarily represent those of NSF International
    or its affiliates.