Hello and welcome everyone. My name is Dane Menke. I’m the digital marketing manager here at REGENESIS and LandScience. Before we get started, I have just a few administrative items to cover. Since we are trying to keep this under an hour, today’s presentation will be conducted with the audience audio settings on mute. This will minimize unwanted background noise from the large number of participants joining us today. If the webinar or audio quality degrades, please try refreshing your browser. If that does not fix the issue, please disconnect and repeat the original login steps to rejoin the webcast.

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Today’s webinar will discuss navigating PFAS legal challenges related to the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act With that I’d like to introduce our presenters for today.

We are pleased to have with us Brian Gross partner at MG &M the law firm Brian Gross has an exceptional track record of finding client-oriented solutions to complex legal issues. As counsel for several entities facing government enforcement and civil class actions relating to multiple contaminants, including PFAS, he develops strategies not only to eliminate or mitigate the liability of his clients, but also to recover the costs associated with investigation and remediation.

In addition, Bryan counsels clients concerning environmental contamination and potential liabilities that may arise from industrial manufacturing and other processes. This includes the development of programs for compliance with federal, state and local environmental regulations and the counseling of companies and investment firms concerning environmental issues, including PFAS, for corporate transactions, investment decisions and to avoid future litigation.

We’re also pleased to have with us today Maureen Dooley, Vice President Industrial Sector at REGENESIS. Maureen Dooley has over 25 years of experience in many aspects of the remediation industry, including project management, research and development, senior technical oversight, remedial design and laboratory management. In her current role at REGENESIS, she provides technical leadership for complex soil and groundwater remediation projects, including contamination treatment for PFAS, chlorinated solvents and petroleum hydrocarbons, as well as remediation design strategy and business development throughout North America.

All right, that concludes our introduction. So now I will hand things over to Brian Gross to get us started.

Thank you very much and thank you for having me today. I’m really looking forward to talking to you and to the audience about navigating PFAS legal challenges. And in particular, we’re gonna focus on federal regulation of PFAS. And with that, I will jump right in. So as I mentioned, we’re gonna talk about federal PFAS regulation today. We’re gonna narrow it down. And part of what we’ll talk about is some of the rules, some of the major rules that have been promulgated in the last year. And we’ll talk a little bit about what impact those may have and what you can do to prepare for them and to comply. And so, with that, any discussion of federal regulation of PFAS really has to start with the Biden administration’s PFAS strategic roadmap.

As many of you may already know, the roadmap came into existence in 2021, and it set timelines by which EPA planned to take specific regulatory actions to safeguard communities from PFAS contamination. And that approach, that regulatory approach, was based on the following principles. One, to hold polluters accountable. Two, to prioritize protection of disadvantaged communities, which as we’re speaking now is interesting because with the Trump administration’s executive order terminating environmental justice programs, it’ll be interesting to see what impact that has moving forward on federal regulation of PFAS. And then Lastly, the approach was based on the principle of ensuring science-based decision-making.

And there’s really a question as to whether or not the Biden EPA followed that approach and whether these rules that were promulgated really were based on sound science decision-making. And during the past four years of the Biden administration, pursuant to the strategic roadmap, EPA has proposed nearly two dozen regulatory actions and has promulgated several rules, and a few of which we’re gonna talk about today.

The first one we’re gonna talk about is PFAS reporting rule, also known as TOSCA Section 8A7. Pursuant to TOSCA 8A7, companies are required to report a number of different pieces of information concerning PFAS, and we’ll get into a little more detail about that, but the basis of the rule comes from the Defense Reauthorization Act of 2020, which required EPA to establish reporting and record-keeping requirements for PFAS. Because it comes from statutory authority under the Defense Authorization Act of 2020, there are very few exemptions built into this rule.

For instance, unlike the chemical data reporting rules, there are no exemptions in this rule for small manufacturers or for de minimis use of PFAS. And this rule requires, as I mentioned, the electronic reporting of a vast number of different categories of information concerning PFAS, including uses, production volumes, byproducts, the disposal of these products, exposures associated with, working with or around these products, as well as any health hazards associated with them. And this information has to be reported separately for each year between January 1, 2011 and December 31 of 2022.

So it’s a retroactive rule that requires this information to be reported for every year. Whether or not a company is continuing to manufacture or import these products, whether it was for one year, whether it was for the whole period of time, they still have to report separately for each year between 2011 and 2022. So let’s dive into the rule and talk a little bit about the requirements. And the first thing you have to know is who has to report. So the rule is very clear that any company that has domestically manufactured PFAS for commercial purposes is required to report, but it doesn’t end there.

Also it requires any company that has imported any PFAS chemical to report. And unlike any other reporting rule before this, such as the chemical data reporting rule, it requires the reporting of imported articles. So not just chemicals, but also reporting of any product or article which contains PFAS that is imported into the United States. Again, for any time period between January 1 of 2011 and December 31 of 2022. So as I mentioned before you must report for each qualifying year whether that be one year or 12 years depending on how often the company has manufactured or imported materials with PFAS. So what do they have to report and which PFAS?

Well PFAS as many of you group, and depending on how you define it, it can be a group of several hundred chemicals or more than 15 ,000 chemicals. And there are a number of different definitions for PFAS. Now, all of them, as I’m sure you know, have one thing in common. They all have a carbon fluorine bond. But different entities define PFAS in different ways. And EPA is no different. EPA, for this rule, used a structural definition, which is a different definition than is used in most states and in the EU. And so according to this rule, EPA deems PFAS to be all chemical substances that structurally contain at least one of the following three substructures, which are on the slide, and I’m not going to get into any detail because I’m not a scientist. but what I can tell you is that EPA has identified at least 1 ,462 different PFAS chemicals that meet this definition and are therefore covered by the rule.

EPA has listed those 1 ,462 PFAS on its Comptox dashboard, which can be found at the link right here on the slide. This is really different because it puts the burden on companies to determine whether or not their product or their chemical meets this definition. While EPA has listed these 1 ,462 PFAS, they have explicitly said that that is not an exhaustive list, and so they put the burden on the reporting companies to determine if their chemicals or articles meet that definition. What’s also interesting, at least to me, is that while there are 1 ,462 PFAS at least that meet this rule, the vast majority of them have no risk assessments that have been done. And so they really haven’t been studied. And so it’s unclear whether any of them, beyond the few that have been studied, have any adverse health effects associated with their exposure.

Even those that have had some studies there really is still a question about whether or not any PFAS actually cause any adverse health effects despite the fact that there are certainly a number of studies that show some type of association. So I mentioned before when we’re talking about who must report that it’s those who manufacture PFAS chemicals or import PFAS articles for commercial purpose. So under the rule, the manufacturing for commercial purposes means to import, produce, or manufacture with the purpose of obtaining a commercial advantage. Now, this includes the manufacturer of any amount.

As I mentioned, there are no exemptions for de minimis amounts. So it’s any amount of a chemical substance or a mixture for commercial distribution, including for test marketing or for product R &D. Now, a key difference between this rule and the TOSCA chemical data reporting rule is the requirement to report PFAS in mixtures. That’s nowhere to be found in any other reporting requirements. And this is despite the fact that TOSCA does not include mixtures in its definition of chemical substances. As I mentioned, the rule not only includes the manufacture of PFAS chemicals, or the import of PFAS chemicals. But manufacture for commercial purposes also includes the importation of PFAS-containing articles. And it defines an article in a number of different ways, including the fact that it is formed to a specific shape or design, has end-use functions depending on that shape or design, and has either no change of chemical composition during its end use, or only those changes of composition which have no commercial purpose.

Now, you should understand that fluids and powders, because of this definition, are not considered articles. Now, the inclusion of articles will certainly result in far more companies having to report than ever before, even companies that may not know that this applies to them because they’ve never had to report before. In fact, EPA estimates that only about 300 or so manufacturers will be required to report. But because of the rule, including the importation of articles, they expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 148 ,000 importers to be required to report.

So we’ve talked about what’s included, but let’s talk a little bit about what’s not included. There are some uses that are not subject to this reporting requirement. That includes the importation of municipal solid waste streams, the non-commercial import of a product by a federal agency, and then chemicals that are regulated by other agencies. For instance, the FDA with things like food or food packaging, cosmetics, medical devices, those sorts of things, as well as pesticides are not included and not required to be reported. So now that we know what must be reported, let’s talk about the scope of that reporting. So EPA requires that companies report all information that is known or reasonably ascertainable.

So what does that mean? Well, it means all of the information that is in that company’s possession or control but on top of that it also includes all information that what they quote quote reasonable person similarly situated might be expected to possess control or no. So what that means is it includes a certain level of due diligence. EPA expects that companies will go outside of their company perhaps to their supply chain to their customers to others to find out information in their possession that might relate to their chemical or article. And so there is certainly a requirement that companies go outside of their own knowledge to at least do the due diligence to try to ascertain other information that might be available.

That information that is known or reasonably ascertainable that must be reported include things like information about the company and plant site information. And that company information includes any parent companies that might be involved. They also require the reporting of the name of an authorized official and the technical contact for the company. And that authorized official must sign certification statements that are required under the rule that certify that you’ve done the due diligence and that all the information is complete and accurate. In addition, companies must also report the PFAS chemical identities, product categories and functional use, as well as their production and or import volume for those chemicals and or articles.

Companies must also report information about byproducts, estimated number of workers who may be exposed to the product, as well as the duration of each worker’s exposure. also the manner or method of disposal of each of these chemicals or articles, and finally information related to any health or environmental effects associated with the chemical or article. And as I mentioned before, each of these categories of information must be separately provided for every PFAS article or mixture for each year in which the company manufactured or the material, whether that’s one or 12 years or anything in between.

Now there is, while I mentioned before, there is no exemption for small manufacturers. EPA did create streamline reporting for certain companies and those companies who can take advantage of streamline reporting are those who simply import articles, or those that manufacture or import PFAS in quantities that are less than 10 kilograms, solely used for research and development. And those companies that qualify for streamlined reporting do have less information to report, although I certainly wouldn’t say that their reporting requirements are any really that much less onerous. They do require much less data reporting, but it is still incredibly onerous. And they must report things like chemical identity, import production volume, the industry sector for the chemical or the product, the product category, functional use, the maximum PFAS concentration in the chemical or article, and whether or not the use is intended for children.

All of this information must be reported no later than January 11th of 2026, and it must be submitted electronically to EPA. Now, originally, the deadline for reporting of this information was May 8th of 2025, but that has been delayed. In September, EPA announced the delay again until January 11th of 2026, primarily because they didn’t have the budget to create the database that was required to house all of this incredibly detailed information. And so it’s certainly possible that the deadline will be further pushed out. I think it is probable that it will be pushed out. That being said, I certainly would urge all companies not to count on that and to, if you haven’t already started, to really get started doing the due diligence because this is going to be something that’s going to take a lot of time to do.

There’s also certainly the possibility, Again, I wouldn’t count on this, but there’s certainly the possibility that this rule may not only be delayed, but it may, in fact, fall by the wayside, again, given the fact that they’re having budgetary constraints in putting together the database because it’s unlikely that the Trump administration will provide much more in the way of funding for this. So, that being said, again, my advice is not to count on the fact that it may be delayed or go away altogether, but it’s certainly something that could happen in the future. Now if you fail to meet that reporting deadline or you fail to provide complete information or perform the required due diligence investigation, the penalties can be rather substantial. In fact, the maximum daily civil penalties reach as high as $48 ,512 with criminal penalties reaching $50 ,000 per day and or imprisonment for up to one year or both.

But perhaps the most troublesome aspect of this rule, while certainly the reporting and data gathering is going to be incredibly onerous. For me, the most troublesome part of this rule is that all of the information that is reporting will eventually be made public. EPA will make their database public for anyone to access. It will compile the data, which will then constitute the largest ever data set of PFAS manufactured, imported, and used in the United States. And that data certainly could be used not only by the EPA and by states for enforcement actions, but my guess is that it will be a roadmap for plaintiffs to bring property damage and personal injury claims. And in fact, we’ve already seen something like this happen because the state of Maine has a very similar reporting requirement that’s already gone into effect.

And in fact, just recently, BIC USA was the subject of a class lawsuit filed in California after it disclosed that its razors contain PFAS in response to that main reporting law. So this is just I think one example of what we expect to occur if this should come to fruition and all of the information reported becomes public. So with that I’m going to change direction here and talk a little bit about CERCLA, specifically about the hazardous substances designation for PFOA and PFOS. And as some of you may know, in 2024, EPA promulgated a rule designating PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under CERCLA.

Pursuant to that designation, EPA can now require cleanup of any site that it deems to have been contaminated with PFOA and PFOS, or it can do it itself and require the repayment of costs by those that are found liable, which can include the current and former landowners, anyone who contributed to the contamination of PFOA and PFOS, as well as anyone who transported those materials to the site. And that liability faced by those landowners, contributors and transporters is strict liability, meaning there is no showing any excuse any showing why any caveats it is strict liability and it’s also joint and several which means that EPA can come to any one landowner contributor or transporter and make them pay the whole freight and it’s then up to that entity to then go try to get contribution for those costs and those costs can be quite hefty.

In fact, the US Chamber of Commerce estimates that it will cost just for investigation and remediation of non-federal superfund sites anywhere between $11 and $22 billion to clean up those sites, which inevitably will lead to further litigation from those who are stuck with that liability, those that will go after, those are likely to go after other potentially responsible parties, as well as you can have a situation where private citizens bring suits, as well as, as I mentioned, EPA enforcement. Now, at the same time that EPA promulgated this rule, it also promulgated and proposed an enforcement discretion policy. Pursuant to this enforcement discretion policy, EPA stated that it would focus its enforcement responsibility on those entities that it deems to be responsible who significantly contributed to the release of PFAS into the environment, including parties that manufactured PFAS or used PFAS in their manufacturing processes.

What they said they would not do is pursue those that they deem to be more passive contributors to PFAS contamination including community water systems, publicly-owned treatment works or landfills, farms where biosolids were applied to the land, as well as publicly-owned airports and fire departments that were required to use PFAS-containing aqueous film-forming foam as part of their operations. Now, while this sounds great, it’s certainly not the panacea that it may seem to be. And that’s because of multiple reasons.

One being that this was, this policy was put in place by the last administration. It’s unclear whether this administration will follow that same policy. But even if they do, this particular policy is just that, it’s a policy, it’s not a regulation, and it may not shield entities from state actions as well as citizen suits and contribution claims. Because of the cost associated with this and the ubiquitous nature of PFAS, which could mean that there are new superfund sites all over the country. This particular rule has been challenged by a number of industry groups. In fact, they filed suit in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit last year, and the case is in the middle of briefing at this time. Those industry groups have asked the court vacate this rule because they claim that EPA has made a number of mistakes in promulgating this rule.

First of all, they argue that EPA misinterpreted the term may present substantial danger to require only the possibility of substantial danger. Not only that, they then go on to identify a non-exhaustive list of factors that might be relevant that EPA weighs in some unknown manner that EPA based its decision on the association of PFAS with adverse health effects as opposed to any definitive evidence that any PFAS actually cause any adverse health effects. These industry groups also argue that EPA violated the Administrative Procedures Act’s notice and comment requirement and that the cost-benefit analysis was inadequate and that it ignored some underestimated others and mistook some costs for benefits while miscalculating the purported health benefits.

Now this case as I mentioned is currently pending although just a couple of weeks ago the EPA asked for and the court granted a 60-day abeyance to this case so the case is currently stayed while the EPA reviews the rule. And it is certainly possible that the EPA will decide to change the rule or abrogate it altogether. But the EPA has asked the court for some time to review it because it may make some efforts to do something which may moot the need for this litigation. And with that, I’m going to turn my attention to another rule that was promulgated just last year by EPA. And that’s a rule that sets maximum levels of PFAS in drinking water.

As I mentioned, EPA in 2024 promulgated a rule that set maximum contaminant levels for certain PFAS in drinking water. One of those being a four part per trillion maximum contaminant level for PFOA and PFOS. Now just to put that into perspective, just to understand just how small four parts per is. Four parts per trillion is roughly the equivalent of one drop of water in five Olympic sized pools. So this is an incredibly small amount of PFAS in drinking water and in fact it’s the lowest level that can reliably be detected with current technology. And this rule requires that public water systems monitor for these PFAS within the next three years and notify the and reduce the levels of PFAS in drinking water to meet these regulatory levels by 2029.

As you can imagine, the vast majority of public water systems across America can’t meet these current MCLs. And so as a result, they’re going to have to do capital improvements to install treatment systems as well as maintenance operations to maintain those treatment facilities so that they can meet these incredibly low MCLs, and that comes at a cost. In fact, there are estimates that it could cost public water systems anywhere between 37 billion and $175 billion to meet these MCLs by 2029. And for those of you who are familiar with the AFFF multi-district litigation and the settlements that have occurred in that litigation with public water systems know that those defendants in those cases have agreed to pay a little bit in excess of $14 billion.

So if these cost estimates for the capital improvements necessary for treatment of the public water systems is accurate, they certainly don’t have sufficient funds to meet the needs or the requirements of this rule. And therefore you can expect that there are really only three alternatives for public water systems. One is that the federal government provides funding for them to meet these capital improvement requirements. That’s unlikely. The second alternative being that public water systems can pass on these costs to their rate payers, which again is a bit untenable.

And lastly, they can bring litigation to try to obtain that funding that’s necessary from potentially responsible parties, which I would venture is the most likely outcome. Because of those costs, again, industry groups have challenged this rule and again have asked the court to vacate the rule based on errors that they found in the rulemaking process.

First of all, these industry groups have argued that the concurrent publication of EPA’s determination to regulate with its proposed regulation ignores congressional intent and prior policy, that the Hazard Index is in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, which does not permit regulation of mixtures, and that again the cost-benefit analysis was flawed in that they wrongly combined the cost-benefit analysis into a group determination, which allowed the positive effect of some to offset the negative effect of others. It also allowed them to ignore some additional costs.

And like the suit relating to the hazardous substances designation, the EPA just last month requested and the court granted a 60-day abeyance for the EPA to review this rule, again, to determine whether they want to make changes or to vacate the rule, which would, again, moot the need for this litigation to move forward.

So we’ve talked now about at least some of the federal regulations. And before I leave, I’d just like to talk to you a little bit about what you can do to try to minimize risk. Well, first of all, you’ve already started to do that by taking advantage of webinars like this one. But there are also a number of webinars that are offered by the EPA and other law firms that can give you guidance on how to comply with these rules. Also, EPA has actually done a nice job of putting guidance documents on its website, which provides guidance information as well as answers to frequently asked questions. I would urge you also to establish a team internally and externally, including team members with the proper technical expertise to help you make your way through these regulations. Include counsel, whether it be in-house counsel or outside counsel in your due diligence efforts. That’s because you want to be able to protect this information through privilege because there is certainly the potential for litigation on the horizon.

As I mentioned before, ensure that your data collection efforts are robust, that you’ve done your due diligence. And document each step of the process so that if EPA comes to you, you can show them that you’ve actually done the necessary due diligence. And this one thing I can’t stress enough, Get ready now because whether or not these regulations fall by the wayside There will be further PFAS regulation whether it be from the federal government or from the states And there will be litigation so the time to get ready is now Gather your documents concerning any products that you’ve manufactured or sold also gather documents concerning your facilities if you have manufactured a product that contains PFAS if PFAS is part of your manufacturing process.

Also, review all your marketing materials and other communications for statements that could be used in a lawsuit or could be the source of a lawsuit and may provide favorable or unfavorable evidence. Make sure that you’re talking to your current and former employees and find a corporate witness.

Lastly, look for insurance policies that may provide coverage if in you are brought into litigation concerning PFAS. Because if you don’t, you will not be ready for the litigation that’s coming. I end with three examples of clients of mine who are involved in PFAS litigation, who had no idea whether or not their products contained PFAS or where there were potentially other responsible parties that could have contributed to that PFAS contamination. So I urge you, it’s never too early to get ready to comply with regulation and to get ready for litigation.

And with that, I’ll turn it over to Maureen.

Well, thank you, Brian. I think that was a really informative and important presentation. You know, and just for me, I think my take on is even though there’s a lot of uncertainty out there, it’s really important to be prepared for what may be coming because, you know, even though we’re not sure where these regulations may go, even the federal level, I would say at the state level, we do have regulations that are currently being enforced. And so it’s important to understand that. And I think if you have sites that are even under the federal umbrella, if you’re in a circular site, you’re still going through a five-year review and compounds like PFAS are being looked at very closely.

So what I want to do today is just talk about an approach that REGENESIS has. So if you’re a responsible party or if you have a site and you have perhaps the potential to have PFAS contamination, an approach that you might consider is part of any mitigation efforts that you may need now or in the future. So just as part of introduction for REGENESIS, I’m sure many of you are familiar with us. We are a turnkey full service company that offers remediation services that are focused on groundwater and soil and we have a range of technologies that we work with including biodegradation, bioremediation, in-situ chemical reduction, ISCO, but the focus of today will be primarily on in-situ sorption.

REGENESIS as a company has been around since 94 and we’ve had a constant flow of new products and technologies and continue you know as we’re moving forward today and into tomorrow looking for the next future technologies that would be appropriate for this industry. But what our focus has been on most recently has been the development of colloidal products that can be used for in-situ remediation. And the purpose really is to overcome a number of challenges that we often see related to distribution of materials, you know, the reactivity, like how quickly a reaction takes place. Do these reactions take place long enough and the ability to mix different reagents together to be able to have a combined remedy at once with our ultimate goal is if we have a single application of a reagent grouping or a reagent itself, can we achieve cleanup goals, have that happen more quickly with the overall goal of trying to reduce project costs.

So the colloidal technology in general, what is it? So you can have a homogeneous mixture of micron size particles that’s dispersed in a liquid. So PlumeStop is one that many may be familiar with is colloidal activated carbon. So you have one to two micron size activated carbon that’s suspended in a polymer and that creates this colloidal mixture. And so without this polymer that in the suspension that we have, you see that things just settle out. So our objective here is to have a solution that you can inject into the subsurface that it’s going to allow for this greater distribution of the materials. And so we’ve been involved with this colloidal development for almost 17 years now with our first product coming out, PlumeStop, which is our colloidal activated carbon.

And then we have a number of other products, PetroFix and SourceStop are both colloidal activated carbon products with different focus, one for petroleum, one for high concentration source material. We also have a colloidal sulfidated iron and we also have a colloidal electron donor that’s AquiFix. So the many sites that REGENESIS work on cross the gamut, you know, dry cleaners, gas stations to large industrial facilities or Department of Defense facilities. And we have a wide range of contaminants that we may be working with. And so these colloidal products, either individually or in combination, may be used to address really everything that’s listed on this particular slide.

But what I really want to talk about is PFAS. And as mentioned, there’s a number of sources of PFAS. We quite often run into PFAS that has a very specific source that may be associated with fire training. But what we find is it tends to accumulate in the soil, but through the action of precipitation, rain events, it eventually is going to leach into the groundwater. Now, because these fluorinated compounds are resistant to any kind of degradation, thus the name Forever Chemicals, once they get into groundwater, they’re going to continue to migrate. And that can obviously be a concern if you’re a site or responsible party. You know, is this going to, you know, move off site and have the potential to impact drinking water or other sensitive ecological receptors.

So, in looking at how to potentially address contamination that may be present at the site, you’ve got the source area, if you have perhaps a fire training situation, you may have material that’s in vadose zone, has made its way into the groundwater and also gets accumulated in the capillary fringe, and then also can be very concentrated in the groundwater saturated zone just underneath the source. And then the PFAS contamination will continue to migrate and it will inevitably be in the groundwater. So our focus of where to address that can be at the source or sometimes it may be just a barrier to address groundwater contamination to keep it from moving off site.

So initially what I wanna talk about is the groundwater portion. And if you’re looking to address PFAS, there’s really only two choices. There’s groundwater extraction or pump and treat where contamination is going to be pulled out of the ground and then processed. It could be through GAC systems, foam fractionation or some other methodology and the others in situ. But just to focus for a second on the pump and treat, one of the perceptions are that a groundwater extraction or pump and treat system is actually cleaning the groundwater. But in reality, it’s not. If we look back into Superfund sites where a pump and treat may have been started 40 years ago with the goal of addressing TCE contamination, we find that it’s rare that any of those sites have actually been cleaned up because the process of trying to flush out all of that contamination is really quite daunting. And so when you get to PFAS where you have targets as low as four parts per trillion, the time and effort to address the PFAS in this methodology may be quite challenging.

So as an example on the PFAS, there’s a paper that was published recently, and this was by Dr. Jeremy Birnstingl and Dr. John Wilson, and I’ll give a reference to this later. But what they did is a deep dive into some of the data at Wardsmith Air Force Base where they looked at the pump and treat system and the operation of it and looking at how long it may take for the contamination of this particular site to be quote unquote clean up or meet targets. So just looking at the design initially when they were doing the feasibility study, they have a pump and treat system running at about 240 GPM and you can see some of the contaminants. Initial estimates for this process was about $6.4 million for 30 years to get hydraulic containment. And that was the least expensive option. And so the estimate for the time to closure is 30 years, but is that really true?

And so in this deep dive in this paper, what they found is that the time to achieve levels of 20 parts per trillion or four parts per trillion in essence can take anywhere from 50 to maybe 400 years, depending on where you are in the estimate. But ultimately, if you’re looking at a 30 year timeframe, that’s really not realistic, in an essence could take centuries to actually achieve these cleanup levels using a groundwater extraction system. So during this entire time, you also are going to be responsible for managing any waste that’s brought to the surface. So you have that continued liability for any waste that’s been generated.

So is there an alternative? And yes, there is. And so what you can also look at is an in situ remediation process where you’d have the application of a colloidal activated product or colloidal activated carbon. So the PlumeStop material, which is this one to two micron activated carbon is able to be injected under low pressure and you’re able to distribute the colloidal activated carbon and you ultimately will create a filter underground. So how does the remediation achieved? Well, the colloidal activated carbon particles will become permanently part of the subsurface. So it’s going to coat the aquifer matrix and create this filter. It’s not going to change a hydraulic conductivity. So what will happen is groundwater moves through and the PFAS moves through this barrier or filter, it’s going to be immediately removed from groundwater. And so ultimately you’re going to reduce the risk associated with the PFAS by eliminating this exposure pathway.

So the installation of the colloidal activated carbon is quite straightforward. You can use direct push, inject the material. There’s no infrastructure left behind. And then you’ll have this barrier that will be operating for a very significant period of time. So the type of results that we’ve seen from this, This is an example from Camp Grayling in Michigan. So for over four and a half years, you see the blue line above is the up gradient and then down gradient. You see that the concentrations have basically been at non-detect for the entire time or out to four and a half years, reporting limits dropped to two nanograms per liter. So it shows that you have the ability to achieve these low standards.

Another site that we had an application on the colloidal activated carbon was at Martha’s Vineyard Airport. The concern at this particular location is that there were a number of private drinking wells and there’s concern about PFAS moving offsite or off property and impacting those particular wells. So they’re interested in trying to mitigate that. In Massachusetts, again, a state that is enforcing these PFAS regulations have a goal of achieving 22 nanograms per liter for six specific compounds. Now the airport was interested in this in situ technology because they did not want to have to deal with any waste generation being on the island and dealing with that would be less than desirable. They were looking for cost effective measures. And so the costs associated with the groundwater extraction was less desirable as well.

So an application occurred in December of 22 for a 60-foot barrier that was just downgradient from a fire training area. And so in this particular site, you had Coarse Sands, which made it for a very nice application. And so the results, if you look at the red line, that’s your upgradient well. And the green line and green dots shows that after 103 days, we were down to five parts per trillion in a near well, it was five feet down gradient from the barrier. But even in the well that was 25 feet down gradient, when we were out about a year after the application, you see that we had achieved the standards in that well, it being at five parts per trillion. So that showed for a very successful application. And we’ve had a number of applications, I’m just showing some of the airports that we’ve worked on and we’ve been able to meet remediation goals and have this occur in a very short period of time.

But the big question that comes up, well, what about longevity? How long is this barrier going to last? So there’ve been a number of third party studies that have shown that you can get decades of performance, and that’s even in the situation where you have a continuing source. And so, you know, you may be 50, 60 years out, you can always have a second application and continue the timeframe. But I wanna show you just a few slides in a row that I think gives a nice visualization, particularly if you address the source and what you can expect. So, the effect of treating the source, so if you have a downgradient barrier, what’s ultimately going to happen is you’re going to cut off that flux of PFAS discharge that moving into the aquifer moving down gradient. So what you’ll see is you’ll see a change in that the barrier, so the barrier is, this is showing the PFAS contamination within the colloidal activated carbon zone.

And then over time, as clean water is moving through, this peak really gets flattened. So ultimately what’s going to happen is that any breakthrough that might happen on the other side of this barrier is going to be so low that it’s going to stay below your targets. So in essence, it’s maybe possible to design a single application and have that be sufficient for your site. And so just very quickly, you know, how can we address source? We can also use the colloidal activated carbon to stabilize PFAS that may be present in the source area, either in vadose zone or in capillary fringe. and we have a liquid in solid form of the colloidal activated carbon that can be used. And there’s different ways that can be applied, direct mixing, injections is part of an excavation. So we can be very easy to apply these materials.

And ultimately what you’re looking to do is to stabilize any PFAS and keep it from leaching in the groundwater. And so just, you know, some pictures quickly just showing the application of the source stop material and some of the before and after. And just to show the types of results that you can achieve using source stop. This was again a pilot test that was conducted at Camp Grayling. You can see that there was a direct mix here, the dark color, what’s left behind, there’s no O &M, nothing to be seen here. And so we grabbed samples immediately upon the mixing of the source stop and what we’re looking as it’s soil leaching. So SPLP, so you have your baseline, you can see the levels there. And immediately after post-treatment, we have 99% reduction SPLP of PFAS, six months we had non-detect, 12 months we’re at 99%. So you’re able to stabilize this PFAS material.

But finally, cost was something that Brian brought up and is clearly a topic of concern in looking at PFAS and how we can address it. Some of the costs we’ve had associated with our applications, you know, a very early project, it was $73 ,000 compared to what the estimated pump and treat would be at $1.3 million. A large refinery job in Michigan, the PlumeStop barrier was at $3.5 million all in versus an estimated pump and treat which would have been over 20 million and some other data. This shows some relative costs for a site that was in an airport and the PlumeStop was applied and if you look in the orange in the bar graph that shows what the capital cost and it’s fairly similar between the pump and treat with GAC or foam fractionation was a little bit more but you have substantial cost savings by not having O &M, and this is just on 15 years.

So again, you’re looking at saving almost 60% of the costs. And then finally, going back to the Wordsmith, which I had mentioned briefly before, where we did the deep dive and there’s a QR code if you’re interested in getting that paper. Again, we’re seeing the same kind of differential between an in-situ application and the costs associated with an extended pump and treat.

So, with that, I’d just like to close. I just want to show that PlumeStop has been used extensively. We have over 60 applications between the United States and in Europe, and we have many more sites that are under review and getting ready for design and implementation in the future. And we’re involved with ongoing research efforts with SIRDEP and the government and continue to work in that area as well. So with that, I’d be happy to take any questions.