8:30 AM - 12:00 PM Mountain Time or 7:30 AM - 11:00 Pacific Time
PFAS & Emerging Contaminants Training #4 - Online
This three-hour webinar will discuss four important topics that will help public water systems navigate the PFAS issue. In this webinar the following presentations will be given:
8:30 AM - 9:00 AM MOUNTAIN TIME: Topic #1: "Examining PFAS as “Hazardous Substances” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)." This presentation will discuss advocacy being done in Washington D.C. to protect water and wastewater systems from CERCLA liability for PFAS releases.Instructor: Michael Preston, Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs for the National Rural Water Association.
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM MOUNTAIN TIME: Topic #2: "PFAS Litigation Settlement and Deadlines; Working to Fight Contamination" – This session will provide an overview of PFAS, impending regulatory requirements and the current 13.6-billion-dollar settlement with 3M and Dupont. The session will stress the deadlines for utilities with PFAS detections and how to access these funds. The session will explain the details of the settlements and why systems with non-detections or that have not tested, should register to ensure access these funds if detections materialize in the future. The session will also provide a brief outlook for impending litigation as it relates to wastewater utilities.
Instructors: Hank Naughton, Managing Partner, and Sam Wade, Water Consultant, at Napoli Shkolnik PLLC
9:30 AM - 9:40 AM MOUNTAIN TIME BREAK
9:40 AM - 10:40 AM MOUNTAIN TIME :Topic #3: "Removing PFAS from Drinking Water and Managing the Residual Streams" - Dr. Thomas Speth, Environmental Protection Agency, will discuss the technologies used to remove PFAS from drinking water and a broad discussion of the costs of those treatments. Specifically, he will cover granular activated carbon, anion exchange resin, and high-pressure membranes. The second part of the presentation will cover the management of the residuals from these processes.
Instructor: Dr. Thomas Speth, Environmental Protection Agency
10:40 AM - 10:50 AM - Break
10:50 AM - 11:50 AM Topic #4: “How to Successfully Communicate About the EPA’s PFAS Actions with the Press and the Public” – Before the EPA announced its PFAS health advisories and proposed maximum contaminant levels (MCLs), water utilities, industry organizations, and state regulators were already struggling with how to publicly communicate new findings in drinking water, wastewater discharges, and biosolids. Now, with the EPA adding levels of uncertainty to the mix, water providers across the industry must get ahead of the issue and publicly communicate about PFAS. This presentation will provide attendees with the latest PFAS developments – including a breakdown of the EPA’s PFOA and PFOS health advisories and proposed MCLs, as well as UCMR 5 – and outline the successful public communication strategies to use to handle their potential impacts on public confidence in drinking water. We will detail what to say – and what not to say – when it comes to explaining PFAS to the press and the public, based on years of successfully managing PFAS discoveries all over the country.
Instructor: Mike McGill, WaterPIO
Continuing Education Units (CEUs) Available: 0.3 Drinking/Wastewater
Cost: Free
Sponsored by: USDA
Online using Zoom
(phone: (208) 343-7001)
