HARVARD JOHN A. PAULSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES
IMAGE: MEMBERS OF THE SUNDERLAND LAB SAMPLING FOR PFAS CONTAMINATION ON CAPE CODview more
CREDIT: MICHAEL SALERNO
CAPE COD, MASSACHUSETTS – Earlier this year, the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed maximum allowable levels in drinking water for six PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) – so-called forever chemicals. But the draft standards do not account for half of the PFAS at contaminated sites across the country.
PFAS are present in fire retardant foams among other products and have been building up in the environment since they were first invented by Dupont in the 1930s and manufactured widely by 3M beginning in the 1950s. Exposures to some PFAS are linked to a range of health risks including cancer, immune suppression, diabetes, and low infant birth weight.
PFAS compounds come in two forms: a precursor form and a terminal form. Most of the monitored PFAS compounds are terminal compounds. The EPA’s draft drinking water rules are for six terminal compounds that do not degrade under normal environmental conditions. Precursor compounds can be transformed through biological or environmental processes into terminal forms. There are many precursor compounds, most of which are not routinely monitored, and none are currently regulated.
The U.S. military is the largest global user of fire-retardant foams containing PFAS known as AFFF (aqueous film forming foam). For decades, hundreds of military bases across the U.S. and around the world used AFFF containing high levels of PFAS for fire training drills and fighting fires. AFFF use is one of the largest sources of PFAS contamination in drinking water.
“Many PFAS precursors present in AFFF are difficult to measure. This work shows that they are slowly transforming into PFAS of health concern at AFFF-contaminated sites and contributing to downstream contamination” said Elsie Sunderland, Fred Kavli Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at SEAS and senior author on the new paper.
Much of the PFAS at military sites consists of precursors that are omitted from standard analytical methods. Using a method previously developed in the Sunderland lab that captures all precursors in AFFF, the Harvard team modeled the expected duration and contribution of those precursors to groundwater contamination. The study finds that contamination of two of the newly regulated PFAS chemicals (perfluorohexane sulfonate: PFHxS and perfluorbutane sulfonate: PFBS) at one military base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts are sustained by microbial precursor biotransformation in the soil. These precursors are retained in the soil where they leach into groundwater in terminal form at concentrations thousands of times greater than the safe levels established by the EPA.
The researchers projected using a computer model and field data that, without remediation, widespread PFAS contamination of drinking water supplies near military facilities is likely to persist for centuries. Despite contamination of nearby aquifers that may already pose a risk to human health, the majority of PFAS are still sitting in the soils surrounding these contaminated sites, emphasizing the urgent need for advances in remediation technology that are effective at cleaning up both terminal and precursor compounds. Since regulations focus only on terminal compounds, the effectiveness of current remediation technologies at cleaning up precursors is not known.
The researchers concluded that elevated PFAS exposures downstream of more than 300 U.S. military facilities that used the fire-fighting foams could similarly persist for centuries.
“The role of PFAS precursors in sustaining hazardous levels of contamination at Joint Base Cape Cod raises concern about whether exposure risks are underestimated near hundreds of other sites where they are not measured” said Bridger Ruyle, the first author of the study and former doctoral student in Sunderland’s Lab.
The public comment period for EPA’s draft PFAS drinking water regulation closes on May 30. While a step in the right direction, there are thousands of PFAS chemical structures, several hundred of which have already been detected in the environment, Sunderland notes.
In related work also published in Environmental Science & Technology today, Sunderland’s group also has shown that the number of military fire training areas within a watershed is a good predictor for PFAS contamination in a community’s drinking water supply. But some groups are at higher risk than others; a forthcoming publication by the Sunderland lab documents marked sociodemographic disparities in exposures to PFAS and proximity to PFAS sources across the country.
Commercial fishing employs 1.2 million Americans and generates more than $165 billion annually. Yet warming waters are threatening fish populations and disrupting fisheries around the world—a challenge set to worsen as climate change advances. Despite the importance of sustaining fisheries, the reauthorization of the cornerstone policy protecting them in the United States—the Magnuson-Stevens Act—has been stalled in Congress for a decade. The holdup? Some blame the policy for being too stringent and leading to what they call “underfishing,” while others argue the policy is not doing enough to rebuild depleted fish populations. Others go so far as to argue that fish populations would have rebounded without any policy.
A pair of studies finds these concerns to be largely unsubstantiated. In analyzing the policy’s impact on fish populations, fishing, and industry revenue, they find that it is working essentially as it should. It is rebuilding fish populations, and in most cases it is not unduly holding back fishers from making their catch.
“Many people talk about the need to manage our resources sustainably,” says Eyal Frank, a lead author of the studies and an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. “Too often, this becomes just talk with little evidence that our policies are making a difference. Our studies provide that evidence. Our fishing policy is working, and that is very encouraging news at a time when sustaining our fisheries couldn’t be more vital.”
Kimberly Oremus, co-lead author of the studies and an assistant professor at the University of Delaware’s School of Marine Science and Policy, adds, “With many of the world's fisheries in decline, our findings show that sustainable fishing is possible with the right policies.”
In a study published in Science, Frank, Oremus and their other co-authors first examine the assertion of critics of U.S. fishing policy that it is too stringent and unnecessarily leaving too many fish in the water. They find that the main reason about half of the fish stocks considered “underfished” in this way is due to pure economics. Fishers are not harvesting the fish because there is not enough demand for them. Other healthy fish stocks are being left in the water because they could not be profitably caught without also catching other fish species that are depleted. Just four fish species make up the majority of the revenue of those “underfished.” And, of those, the majority of the revenue came from just one species: the walleye pollock, the catch of which is not constrained by our federal fisheries law.
“If the concern is lost revenue or catch, it would make the most sense to narrow the focus to this small number of high-value stocks, which are constrained for specific reasons that may or may not prove tractable,” the researchers write.
In a second study, Frank and Oremus look at a separate criticism of the policy: that it is not doing enough to rebuild fish populations or that fish populations would have rebounded on their own without the policy. They discover the opposite to be true. Fish subject to the policy saw their size increase to be 52.2 percent larger than those comparable fish in the European Union, where similar fishing policies were not yet in effect. Comparing US fish populations that were depleted before the rebuilding policy went into effect to US fish populations that were depleted after the policy went into effect, Frank and Oremus find that in the absence of policy the declining fish populations continued to decline by about 45 percent. But when the policy took effect, it took five to 10 years for the fish population to double in size—recovering to be about 98 percent greater in size than when it was first threatened.
Frank and Oremus show that the policy clearly leads to long-term gains in the fish population. But how does it impact the industry? The researchers find that the fish catch and revenue declined in the first years of rebuilding, but then recovered to pre-rebuilding levels or higher within a decade. In fact, the authors report results that suggest that in the 10 to 15 years after being subject to the rebuilding efforts, the size of the catch for fish populations that had fully recovered was 51.9 percent higher than that of equivalent fish stocks in the EU.
“We hope these studies provide useful evidence for policymakers that science-based management of biological resources actually works,” Oremus says.
Across the United States, legislators and the public have debated the issue of bail reform, which aims to reduce pretrial jail populations by eliminating cash bail. New York State passed legislation in 2019 to limit the use of money bail and expand pretrial release. In a new study, researchers evaluated the effect of the law on state crime rates, considering the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although rates of murder, larceny, and motor vehicle theft rose after the bail reform law went into effect, none of the increases were statistically significant when compared with a control group. This suggests that the effect of bail reform on crime rate increases was negligible.
The study, by researchers at the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY Albany), appears in Justice Quarterly, a publication of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.
“This study is the first rigorous evaluation of how bail reform in New York State affects crime,” according to Sishi Wu, a Ph.D. candidate in criminal justice at SUNY Albany, who led the study. “The results can inform policymakers and address concerns expressed by the public.” New York State’s 2019 bail reform law went into effect on January 1, 2020. The law requires courts to release defendants on their own recognizance or under non-monetary conditions unless the defendants are charged with offenses listed in the legislation. Essentially, the 2019 law adopted a presumption of release and eliminated money bail and pretrial detention for all misdemeanors with two exceptions and for all nonviolent felonies with a limited number of exceptions.
Following the law’s enactment, pretrial jail populations declined in the state (as expected). Law enforcement officers and other stakeholders were concerned that suspects released as a result of the reform may reoffend; they were also concerned that the reform may have created a sense of lawlessness that would not deter criminals from being caught.
To determine whether the law affected crime rates in the state, the authors analyzed whether bail reform was significantly associated with increased crime. When a significant association was detected, they examined whether it was causal. The study used data from the New York State index crime, which includes monthly counts for seven crimes (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft) from January 2017 to September 2021. It also compared New York State’s crime data with data from other states by examining monthly crime counts for 49 states and the District of Columbia from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program from January 2017 to December 2020.
The study found that rates of murder, larceny, and motor vehicle theft rose after the bail reform, but the increase may have been due to the pandemic instead of bail reform. The authors controlled for the impact of the pandemic by constructing a comparison group of other states also affected by the pandemic but without bail reform in the same period. After comparing New York State with the comparison group, the study found that the rate of increase in crimes in New York State was insignificant.
Among the study’s limitations, the authors note that they did not consider different levels of the pandemic’s impact in different states (New York State was affected early and was an epicenter of the virus’s outbreak in the United States). Also, the study did not consider the effect of an amendment to the bail reform law that increased the number of eligible offenses.
“Despite multiple statements from the media and stakeholders that individuals released under bail reform are no more likely to reoffend, the public continues to believe that bail reform leads to more crime,” says David McDowall, professor of criminal justice at SUNY Albany, who coauthored the article. “Using findings such as ours, lawmakers and stakeholders can better address concerns about public safety.”
Connecticut Clean Water Action Director, Anne Hulick, stated “From our founding in 1972, Clean Water Action’s mission has been to protect our waters from harmful pollution. Little did we know at that time, that microplastics would be such a devastating problem. The oceans, Long Island Sound and Connecticut rivers are filled with microplastics. These tiny plastic particles are consumed by fish, sea mammals and birds. Plastic is not only a fossil-fuel product but contains chemicals that disrupt hormones. We are grateful to Attorney General Tong for his leadership, garnering the support of sixteen other Attorneys General and urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to adopt measures that would dramatically reduce microplastic fibers from washing machine cycles.”
Synthetic materials used to make clothing and other items contain tiny microplastics known as microfibers. Microfibers shed when washed and end up in wastewater and ultimately in rivers and the ocean. These plastic microfibers are not only made from fossil fuel byproducts but contain numerous harmful chemicals. Many of these chemicals are endocrine disruptors, synthetic chemicals that disrupt hormones in fish, sea mammals and humans.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals are strongly linked to hormonal cancers, reproductive disorders including infertility, metabolic disorders including diabetes and obesity, asthma, and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism.
Technologies exist and are required in other countries to filter and trap plastic microfibers in the wash cycle before they enter our waterways. Research suggests these technologies can successfully filter out as much as 75 percent of microplastics in each wash cycle.
“Proven technologies exist to mitigate this crisis. The U.S. EPA and NOAA must use their authority to address the scourge of plastic pollution in our waters. We applaud Attorney General Tong for his leadership in urging our government to act” stated Hulick.
IMAGE: THE CEC'S TAKING STOCK REPORT ENHANCES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF INDUSTRIAL DISPOSAL PRACTICES AND RISKS AND SHEDS LIGHT ON INFORMATION GAPS THAT CAN IMPEDE THE ABILITY TO TRACK POLLUTANTS SENT TO DISPOSAL, AS WELL AS TO ASSESS AND RESPOND TO EXTREME EVENTS (E.G., FLOODS), THAT RISK RE-MOBILIZING POLLUTANTS FROM DISPOSAL SITES AND CONTAMINATED SOILSview more
CREDIT: NORTH AMERICAN COMMISSION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL COOPERATION
Montreal — The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) today released a new report compiling and analyzing data reported by approximately 24,000 industrial facilities in Canada, Mexico and the United States to their respective national pollutant release and transfer registers. The report reveals important gaps in the reporting and tracking of transfers to disposal across the region due to differing reporting requirements, shared responsibilities across agencies and jurisdictions, and the lack of information about the fate of waste pollutants when they are transferred to third parties (such as waste management service providers) or across national borders. The report also provides insights about the challenges facing facilities relative to implementing pollution prevention and sustainable production practices and offers examples of alternatives to the generation and disposal of industrial waste.
Since 1995, the CEC has worked with governments, industry, civil society and academia through the North American Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) Initiative to promote and enhance access to comparable and complete PRTR data for the region to support decisions about pollution prevention and sustainability. In parallel with the release of the 16th edition of Taking Stock, the CEC has launched the enhanced Taking Stock Online web portal featuring a searchable database and tools that allow researchers, decision-makers and the general public to explore the latest integrated North American PRTR data.
“In the spirit of the public’s right-to-know, Taking Stock presents and analyzes data on industrial pollutant releases and transfers to inform decisions about preventing pollution and advancing environmental justice by reducing the risk of exposure to contaminants of vulnerable communities,” said Jorge Daniel Taillant, CEC Executive Director.
“This report sheds light on important data gaps across North America that stem from differing national reporting requirements and from the transfer of responsibility for waste pollutants after they leave the source facility. These gaps in information about the quantities and management of substances can, for example, constrain our ability to respond to extreme events and disasters, such as floods, that risk re-mobilizing pollutants from disposal sites and contaminated soils. In the context of climate change, we must re-evaluate the ‘business as usual’ approach to the use of pollutants and the generation of hazardous waste.”
Key findings:
Almost 24,000 industrial facilities across North America reported more than 5 billion kilograms (kg) in pollutant releases and transfers each year. The distribution among release and transfer types is roughly as follows (average of 5 years):
Release or Transfer Category % of total
On-Site Air Emissions: 7.00
On-Site Surface Water Discharges: 4.00
On-Site Underground Injection: 5.00
On-Site Disposal or Land Releases: 41.00
Off-site Transfers to Recycling: 26.00
Off-site Transfers to Treatment, sewage, energy recovery: 10.00
Off-site Transfers to Disposal: 6.00
Together, about fifteen industry sectors accounted for 80% of the reported annual totals – including metal ore mining, iron and steel mills/ferroalloy manufacturing, basic chemicals manufacturing, oil and gas extraction, and waste management. Similarly, of the more than 500 pollutants reported, approximately 20 accounted for 88% of annual releases and transfers. Just five of them—zinc, manganese, lead, and copper compounds, along with nitric acid/nitrate compounds—together accounted for about 45% of the total.
The report’s special analysis of off-site transfers to disposal reveals that approximately 11,000 facilities, many of them in these same top sectors, reported transferring about 335 million kg of their waste pollutants to disposal (representing 6% of total annual releases and transfers). The top pollutants – metal compounds such as zinc, manganese, lead and barium, along with hydrogen sulfide – accounted for about 55% of the total.
The report provides examples of the health and environmental issues associated with common industrial disposal practices such as landfills or surface impoundments, underground injection, land application, and “other” disposal. It also reveals important gaps in the data that result from differences among PRTR reporting requirements across the region, as well as the shared responsibility for the reporting and management of hazardous waste. These gaps impede our ability to track pollutant transfers from their source to their ultimate disposition, particularly when they involve third-party contractors or when waste pollutants cross national borders.
A key objective of the CEC’s North American PRTR Initiative is to support pollution prevention and sustainability within industry. This edition of Taking Stock provides information and examples of alternatives to the generation and disposal of industrial waste and shows how PRTRs can serve as important tools to support the transition from a linear to a circular economy, for instance, by calling for detailed reporting of facilities’ pollution prevention efforts, needs and challenges that can yield insights for industry and governments.
About the North American Pollutant Release and Transfer Register Initiative
The CEC's North American Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (NAPRTR) Initiative promotes public access to data and information reported by industrial facilities in North America to improve understanding of the sources and management of pollutants of concern across the region and support decisions relative to pollution prevention and sustainability.
16th edition of Taking Stock report (first analysis was in 1997: using 1994 data from Canada and US)
Feature analysis of Off-site Transfers to Disposal: data in TS Online now available by modality of off-site waste disposal (i.e., data are disaggregated into 6 off-site disposal categories)
Taking Stock Online: data available for 2006-2020 (2019 and 2020 data added as of 2 May report launch), compiled from the three national Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs)
Landing Page: enhanced to provide more context, graphics with key data elements
Cross Border Transfers: can be searchedby source and recipient facility
GHG Data: to be added this year (will include facility-level data for a core set of common GHGs available from Mexico’s RETC, Canada and US GHG Reporting Programs).
Taking Stock vol. 16: Feature Analysis of Off-site Transfers to Disposal
Goal:Enhance our understanding of North American industrial waste disposal practices, potential impacts, and alternatives to the generation and disposal of industrial waste.
Key Findings:
About 45,000 facilities across NA have reported to the PRTRs over the 2006-2020 period
For 2014-2018 (the period of analysis in this report, with 2018 being the latest trinational data available at the time of writing), about 11,000 of the total 24,000 facilities reporting Total Rs and Ts during this period reported close to 335 million kg to Off-site Disposal (OSD) each year
Reported Off-site disposal categories (rough % of total, 2014-18):
Transfers to landfill/surface impoundment: close to 50% (15% decline from 2014-18)
Underground injection: about 20%
Transfers to stabilization prior to disposal: 12% (30% increase over 5 years)
“Other” disposal (unknown): about 10%
Land application: 5% (40% increase over 5 years)
Storage prior to disposal: 4%
Canada & US: OSD represents about 6% of total releases and transfers (TRT) each year.
In Mexico, OSD increased from 12% of TRT in 2014 to 34% in 2018 (driven by gold and silver ore mining).
Approx. 10 industry sectors and 10 pollutants/pollutant groups = 2/3 of total OSD each year:
Top sectors: Iron and steel mills/ferroalloy manufacturing, Oil and gas extraction; Electric utilities; Waste management facilities
Top Pollutants: Zinc, Manganese, Lead and Barium compounds, Hydrogen Sulfide, Methanol.
The report enhances our understanding of industrial disposal practices and risks and sheds light on information gaps that can impede the ability to track pollutants sent to disposal, as well as to assess and respond to extreme events (e.g., floods), that risk re-mobilizing pollutants from disposal sites and contaminated soils
Currently, it is difficult to track pollutants from their sources to their final destination, due to:
The transfer of responsibility for the waste to third parties, such as waste management facilities, which makes it difficult to track the pollutants once they leave the source facility.
Pollutants crossing national borders (where regulations and reporting requirements can differ)
Source facility’s incomplete or inaccurate reporting of recipient facility information.
Important differences among the 3 PRTRs that create gaps across the region – e.g.:
Different disposal terminology and definitions
Differing reporting requirements for sectors and pollutants – e.g.: oil and gas extraction, sewage treatment; manganese, zinc and barium compounds; total phosphorous
Shared responsibility for implementing regulations and monitoring waste.
