EPA’s new PFAS strategy shifts cleanup focus downstream

By Elena Vasquez

A national biosolids survey developed as far back as 2024 remains stalled, while the EPA’s late-October PFAS strategy puts cleanup technology first and leaves proposed industrial discharge limits unissued.

The EPA released its PFAS Technology, Evaluation, Coordination, and Harmonization strategy in late October to develop technological solutions for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance contamination in water.

Which technologies does the EPA back?

The agency is continuing to back foam fractionation and granular activated carbon, while also identifying experimental options such as anaerobic digestion and sewage sludge incineration.

The EPA said it would make grant funding available for PFAS destruction pilots through its Science to Achieve Results and Small Business Innovation Research programs. It also plans an information-sharing platform to help decision-makers assess the latest research.

For technology suppliers, the offer creates a route into federally supported demonstration work. “Partnerships are the key to unlocking innovation and next-generation technologies,” said Jess Kramer, the EPA’s PFAS lead and assistant administrator for the Office of Water.

Kramer said the agency is pursuing public-private partnerships to promote research, development and scalable PFAS-removal technologies. She said those partnerships can accelerate breakthroughs that reduce PFAS in water while lowering treatment costs.

The strategy also builds on EPA and U.S. Department of Defense work conducted over several years, including pilots of hydrothermal alkaline treatment and thermal soil treatment.

That direction has drawn company support. On Oct. 29, 374Water, which offers supercritical water oxidation, praised the strategy in a release to investors. CEO Danny Bogar said the EPA had publicly acknowledged what 374Water had demonstrated for years: capturing PFAS is not the end of the problem, and destruction technologies such as supercritical water oxidation are critical.

Does the plan stop contamination upstream?

The focus matters most for facilities managing contaminated material. Landfills face increased scrutiny over leachate they release, which can contain PFAS. The waste industry objects to restrictions or liability on the grounds that it receives PFAS from industrial sources upstream of landfills.

Washington’s policy signals point in different directions. The EPA under President Donald Trump has rolled back some proposed PFAS drinking-water regulations, though it still designates certain PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances. The agency continues to emphasize private partnerships.

The EPA has also loosened its approach to industrial discharges and biosolids:

• In August, it rescinded a December 2022 memo encouraging states to use their water-permitting authority to restrict PFAS discharges from industrial sources.
• It walked back a draft risk assessment for PFAS in biosolids. Its July overview of existing monitoring practices did not endorse an approach.

Betsy Southerland, former director of science and technology in the EPA’s Office of Water, said the July guidance needed more national information on the occurrence of PFOA and PFOS before conclusions about public-health risk. She also noted that a national survey developed as far back as 2024 had not moved forward.

Southerland retired in 2017 after 33 years at the agency. She said the federal government can help identify and develop cheaper treatment for cash-strapped public water systems, but the strategy omits a key step: preventing contamination before it reaches drinking water plants.

“It’s really such a one-sided strategy, because it’s really only focused on cleaning up drinking water and Superfund sites after they’ve already been contaminated,” Southerland said.

She argued that the policy changes dismantled earlier efforts to apply the polluter-pay principle and make PFAS dischargers stop discharging, leaving downstream communities to pay for drinking-water cleanup. She also said the rescinded memo sent states a signal not to act independently.

For utilities, the practical difference is stark: paying to remove PFAS after it enters the water stream is not the same as setting discharge conditions before it gets there.

When do enforceable limits arrive?

The EPA has indicated plans to release effluent limitation guidelines this year for several industrial categories, including landfills and chrome-plating facilities, described as frequent PFAS dischargers. So far, the agency has not released proposals for those facilities.

An incineration pilot in Ohio disclosed in the strategy also remains ongoing. The publication of proposed discharge limits for landfills, chrome-plating facilities and other industrial dischargers is the regulatory milestone that decides whether federal PFAS policy shifts from paying for cleanup to controlling discharges.