Make It Clear: Why You Can't Just Flush and Forget
Make It Clear: Why You Can't Just Flush and Forget
PFAS is a Real Concern - An Interview with Adam Link
In this conversation with Adam Link of the California Association of Sanitation Agencies (CASA), we discuss the ongoing issues surrounding PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in California, the role of CASA, and the importance of public awareness and individual actions in addressing environmental challenges. We also explore California's regulatory approach to PFAS, the significance of recycled water, and the need for community engagement in wastewater management.
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Angela
Hello and thank you for joining us again. Today we have another follow up from our discussions at WEFTEC and we've got Adam Link with us today. Hi Adam.
Adam Link
Hello, thank you for having me.
Angela
Hi. Yeah, absolutely.
Shawn
Yeah, you bet. It's good to see you again, by the way.
Angela
And as always, Shawn is here to keep us in line and keep the conversation flowing.
Angela
Okay, so I'll just start at it's a. So you heard the follow up, you heard me say hello to Adam and then it cut out. Okay. And as always, Sean is here with us to keep us in line and keep the conversation flowing.
Shawn
Yep.
Angela
All right, Adam, thank you so much for coming back. We really appreciate it. We just kind of want to, you know, follow up on our conversation and expand things. The conversations we had at WEFTEC were, you know, kind of short, in a very busy environment. So, a lot of the stuff that was said in those podcasts we felt was really important and deserved more time and more space. So…
Adam Link
Yeah, well happy to fill in the gaps where needed.
Angela
Yep. So the last time that we talked, we talked quite a bit about the PFAS issue. So can you kind of give us an overview of how the state of California is addressing these issues?
Adam Link
Sure, yeah, in California, you know, obviously every state and federally things are being addressed a little bit differently, but I feel like California has taken a pretty measured and balanced approach thus far, particularly on the regulatory side. They had an investigative order that they conducted a few years ago that looked at levels of PFAS in wastewater effluent and biosolids and found that, you know, with the exception of a few outliers,
levels of PFAS were de minimis or equivalent to kind of background and non-detect levels. So CASA was very involved with that effort and getting it out to our wastewater agencies, making sure there was a high level of participation, and then making sure there was follow-up if there were any that sort of stood out from the group. So that was really great. There've also been some efforts from the State Water Board and kind of internally with agencies to identify areas where there may be
Adam Link
contaminated sites. So, for example, some agencies that were near to airports or other federal facilities that may have used a triple F firefighting foam, which is very heavily PFAS laden, right? So, a lot of those efforts identify where they are, what the source is, and kind of address it from there. And again, a lot of the focus has been on the drinking water side for the most part and setting standards and making sure so,
Adam Link
Being from the wastewater side, our focus has again been more biosolids and more presence in effluent. And a lot of that is coming from just products that are in stream of commerce, right? So a little bit of a different dynamic than the drinking water side. So that's kind of what they've been doing on the regulatory side of things. Legislative front, California legislature has been very active on this. But again, so far in a very proactive way and a very helpful way.
Adam Link
We've been involved, CASA has been involved with a number of builds over the last four or five years that deal primarily with disclosure and source control. So getting these things out of the stream of commerce,
Angela
Yeah, fantastic.
Adam Link
identifying where this is, what products these are in, and making sure companies remove it from those products. Again, if you get it out of the product, it's not going to end up in the wastewater system in the first place.
Angela
Right. So for the listeners that maybe didn't catch the WEFTEC episode, can you tell them a little bit about CASA and what you guys are doing?
Adam Link
Of course, yeah, so CASA, CASA, CASA, can pronounce it however you'd like. Yeah, there's actually a difference of opinion among my membership on that.
Angela
Hey, I always say as long as people are talking about it, that's all that really matters.
Adam Link
Exactly. Well, it stands for the California Association of Sanitation Agencies. So we represent more than 135 local public wastewater agencies, some of which are also involved in water supply, ranging from very large city of Los Angeles, city of San Diego, SFPC, to very small two, three-person community service districts. the whole range, and then geographically everywhere in California from North to South
and we represent them on legal, legislative, and regulatory issues. So we are advocates for them in those arenas and we also do a lot of education, workshops, conferences, those types of things for our members and for others. So that's kind of the background. And I'm Adam Link. I'm the executive director of the association.
Angela
Yeah, perfect. I just wanted to give that little bit because you started talking about it and I was like, if they didn't listen, they're going to want to know what they're going to want to know what that is, though. I think PFAS is a huge issue and we want to give people all the information to find things and the easiest way is to tell them where to get it.
Adam Link
Good. Yep. if folks are interested after, we've developed a lot of resources in collaboration with our agencies. And I can point folks to
Angela
Perfect. So on that front, can you tell us what the public needs to know about PFAS?
Shawn
That’s great.
Adam Link
Sure, and I can go from kind of very high level, the folks that are thinking, you know, what is PFAS, right? What does it stand for? Why do I care? So the basic background, PFAS is a class of man-made fluorinated compounds. They're used in manufacturing and production of both industrial and commercial products. So these things are also called forever chemicals. They're widely used because they're resistant to heat.
Adam Link
resistant to water, oil, and they don't degrade, again, given their forever chemicals. And because of these properties, they have been found in pretty much everything across the board for household products. mean, carpets, furniture, cosmetics, nonstick cookware, pizza boxes, pretty much any household product you can think of that you associate with being nonstick or waterproof is highlighted as there's PFAS involved in manufacturing.
Adam Link
And then the reason why people care, and these have been around for a very long time, but there's gotten a lot of attention in recent years because there's some evidence that exposure to specific PFAS compounds at certain levels can lead to adverse human health.
Shawn
Mm-hmm.
Angela
Yeah. Yep.
Adam Link
So that's kind of the background of, know, what is PFAS? Why is it in the news? Why do we care about those kind of things? Again, coming from the wastewater community, you know, our perspective on it. Again, we don't manufacture PFAS. We don't use it in our processes, anything like that.
Angela
No. No. We don't put it into the water. Yeah.
Adam Link
We are the, exactly, right? We sort of coined the term, we're passive recipients or involuntary recipients of these things because they're so ubiquitous.
Adam Link
I mean, they're going down the drain, they're in the systems, and everything that goes down the drain ends up in our facilities. And so, again, that's why we've been very, had a strong emphasis on source control, getting these things out of the stream of commerce in the first place, because if you do that, they're not going to end up in our system. And then we're not going to have to deal with it in terms of the effects related to effluent, including drinking water side.
Angela
Perfect. All right, so in our initial interview, you touched on the state dealing with emissions issues and climate adaptation with regard to wastewater. Can you talk about that a little bit more, expand on it?
Adam Link
Sure. Yeah, funny enough, earlier this week, I actually gave a talk down to the city of LA about decarbonization and the water sector. And so we got into a lot of these different issues. And I can go for 15, 20 minutes on all the things we're doing. But yeah, I will try to keep it brief. I guess the punchline for it is these are hugely important issues to us in the clean water community. And I think
Adam Link)
If you asked 15, 20 years ago, they were probably important. Some of the same things were going on. It's just there's such a heightened emphasis on helping achieve climate targets and also sort of making our systems resilient, helping with sustainability, sort of all the things that we can do as a clean water community to kind of aid in those efforts. A lot of agencies are looking at them. And in some cases, mean, planning in that respect has become one of the primary drivers of our actions.
Adam Link
So not just, you we obviously our historical mission continues to be protection of public health and the environment through wastewater treatment, right? Clean water. But some of these emissions and climate issues have come really to the forefront. We're doing a lot of things there. So I'll give you just a few examples of where we are helping on that. Recycled water, obviously, is a very big one. We are always looking for ways to increase recycled water production. And that helps just in terms of
Adam Link
California obviously boom bust cycles of droughts and rain and sort of how do we identify and promote more localized water supply and more sustainable water supply solutions and recycled water is one of those where we have a big role to play. And there's a lot of agencies that have done it. Orange County Sanitation District, their groundwater replenishment project, that's sort of the gold standard that we always cite down in Southern California.
Adam Link
But, so many other projects going on at City of LA, San Diego, LA County Sanitation District, huge amounts of recycled water to be produced in the next 10, 15 years. So that's something that we can do. Another is on the renewable energy generation front and I, you know, probably depends on how familiar folks are with wastewater treatment facilities and operations, whether they kind of know what we're able to do on this. But yeah, yeah, so the background, I mean,
Adam Link
I'll give you the very high level is that we are able to produce a lot of the power needed to run our operations on site because of our reuse of biogas. So a lot of facilities have anaerobic digesters, produces biogas naturally as sort of part of our processes. We can convert that into combined heat and power energy. And actually a lot of facilities are now using it to produce increased energy that they've sold outside of facility.
Adam Link
They can turn it into transportation fuels for their own fleets, for sale to others. And then some are looking at pipeline injection, so putting it back into the system and cleansing it for use elsewhere. So a lot of opportunity there and the amount of biogas that we are able to produce, we expect it to increase because of the use of co-digestion. So essentially accepting things like FOG, food waste at our facilities using excess digest or
Adam Link
capacity to increase that. And again, you increase the amount of biogas you produce, it increases the amount of energy you're allowed to produce as well. So we have a big role to play there as well. And then I just say, you know, sustainability efforts, we're looking at energy efficiency. A lot of our facilities are putting in solar panels and things if they have the space. A lot of them are looking at time of use requirements. So
Adam Link
using energy at times that is more beneficial for the grid because we can modify our operations in some cases to do that. So we have a lot of different sort of ends in this area and our agencies are really proactive about pursuing these.
Angela
Yeah.
Shawn
That's awesome.
Angela
So let's flip to the other side of things. What can the lay person do? What can just your average American or person do to help do their part to mitigate some of these issues?
Adam Link
Yeah, so I think a lot of it, I'd say again, coming from the wastewater perspective, a lot of it is just to be aware, right? To be aware of what products PFAS is in and not use those, right? Cause it's a source control side. A lot of it is sort of knowing and you step back a little bit, I feel like from the wastewater community, we were guilty for a long time of sort of trying to be out of sight, out of mind
Adam Link
a little bit and not promoting a lot of the things that we do. I think over last 10 or 15 years, it's really flipped. And we've tried to have a lot more direct engagement with members of the public and say, look at all these cool things we're doing. You know, look at all these opportunities that you have. And at the same time, it's messaging in terms of what not to put down the drain, right? We've done a lot of work on flushable, non-flushable wipes and labeling and things like that.
Angela
Right, we tried to simplify a very complex process, right? So don't worry about this, we'll take care of everything and may have done a bit of a disservice in that simplification, because it is not, it's not simple. Yeah.
Adam Link
Exactly. Yeah, I know. And so I think we're riding the ship in that respect, letting people know all the things we do and what their role in it is. So yeah, just for the lay person, would say just get engaged, be more aware of these things and sort of know your role in respect to the water and wastewater community and how you can help.
Angela
It's interesting you say that because I've heard before, of course, like, well, if I'm on City Sewer, what they call City Sewer, right, then I don't have to follow all these rules. And I'm always like, ehh.. You should.
Adam Link
I would disagree, yeah, as the representative for what you call a city sewer. Yeah, that's not the case. Exactly. man.
Angela
Yeah, I would respectfully disagree with that. if you've ever seen a fatberg or, or the, the wipes in drains, you would absolutely disagree with that comment. but.
Shawn
Yeah
Adam Link
Yes, and I'll tell you from personal experience, we've done studies and I've been out there at the headworks and at the facilities and seen the kinds of things that people flush down their toilets that just be very surprising.
Shawn
It's yeah, it's a little eye-opening.
Angela
Yeah, yeah, yes it is. So that education piece I think is going to be critical just so everybody has that sense of ownership about keeping water water as much as you can, not diapers and wipes and all of those things that don't biodegrade.
Adam Link
Yes, absolutely.
Angela
All right, well, is there anything else that you want to share?
Adam Link
No, I think this is good coverage. I think PFAS is a big issue for us, and we sort of covered that. I think the climate change, climate resilience, the adaptation, emissions issues, those are big ones for us that we're tracking. And then, yeah, I think those are probably two of the biggest things we're facing right now and the things that I want folks to learn a little bit more about. And then I would just say, you know, if there are follow-up questions, CASA,
Adam Link
and our fellow associations, we produce a lot of different resources on these things, and most of which are available to anyone. They’re on our website. They're sort of distributed through our newsletters, which anyone can sign up for. So again, the biggest takeaway I'd say is encourage folks to get engaged, learn more, and ask more questions, because you get a lot of the answers for some of these things.
Shawn
Do you want to give folks that website?
Adam Link
Sure. Our website is casaweb.org, C-A-S-A-W-E-B dot O-R-G. And through there, you can link to a lot of the fact sheets and a lot of the materials we put together, some of the workshop materials we've done, and also some of our partner associations and agencies that have developed similar things.
Angela
Fantastic.
Shawn
That's great.
Angela
All right, well, thank you so much, Adam, for coming in and talking with us again. We will really appreciate it. We learn something every time we talk with you. So thank you for your time.
Adam Link
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciate it.
Angela
Yeah. And thanks all of you for listening.
