PFAS: Coming Soon to Your World

• By: AWMA
• On: 11/03/2025 13:56:13
• In: EM Articles
• Comments: 0

Our focus this month is per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS),which have received considerable attention in recent years in environmental circles, and will likely continue to expand in scope. Due to their unusual and beneficial properties, PFAS have been widely used for decades in industry and consumer products—and hence, have become commonly observed in the environment. Regulatory focus on the potential effects of PFAS Cover Story on human health, however, has spurred considerable regulatory and legislative action. Much of the initial regulatory attention has focused on PFAS in drinking water and so-called long-chain compounds, such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), but PFAS concerns are expanding to the broader environmental realm, including air and waste media of interest to EM readers.

The four articles contributed to this issue cover different facets of adding PFAS to the mandates of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

First, the article by Roman discusses initiatives to incorporate PFAS into the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) framework and how the transition from the Biden administration to the Trump administration is evolving these efforts—perhaps narrowing their scope, but maintaining the likelihood that facility managers will be adding PFAS to their environmental programs. 

Next, McNamara, et al. discuss the dilemma presented by PFAS detections in biosolids, which has the potential to shift management options away from beneficial land application in order to address regulatory concerns regarding potential PFAS releases to groundwater and uptake into agricultural crops and livestock. The authors suggest reductions of PFAS loadings to wastewater treatment plants as one means of reducing PFAS concentrations in biosolids, and that reducing loadings and PFAS use will be more economical than treating biosolids. In order to regulate PFAS, you need to be able to define and measure the compounds of interest. 

Cook and Ready provide an overview of the methods that have been developed to quantify PFAS in various environmental media, including Addressing PFAS Challenges EPA Methods 1633 and 1633A for solid and liquid matrices, as well as OTM-45, OTM-50, and the developing OTM-55 for measuring air emissions. These methods measure different and sometimes overlapping lists of PFAS analytes, and are sufficiently sensitive to measure low concentrations. As noted by the authors, PFAS methods are relatively new, expensive, and could be subject to interferences and quality assurance concerns. The issue of what PFAS are included on analyte lists is also relevant. The OTM-50 method focuses on short-chain volatile PFAS that generally lack toxicity data and standards to compare against. 

In another article, Chandramouli and Fox highlight the methods that have been developed to measure ultra-short chain PFAS such trifluoroacetic acid (TFA)—a compound that has been increasing in prevalence in the environment, and pentafluoropropionic acid (PFPrA)—which is being added to target analyte lists in site characterizations. The authors present data that suggests that elevated concentrations of ultrashort compounds may be present in wastes such as landfil leachate and their measurement is needed to have a better understanding of PFAS contamination. 

We thank the authors for their contributions to this developing topic area and hope EM readers find the information useful. em

Read more