WATER INDUSTRY FEATURES, INSIGHTS, AND ANALYSIS
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After The Fire: What The 2026 Wildfires And El Niño Could Mean For U.S. Lakes And Reservoirs In 2027
In July, smoke from Canadian wildfires spread across the upper Midwest and Northeast. Now a strengthening El Niño is set to influence the coming winter. Both events matter to lake and reservoir managers because their effects on water quality will continue to emerge long after the skies clear or the El Niño passes.
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Minneapolis Flexes Its Mussels For Source Water Monitoring Solution
Protecting municipal drinking water requires rapid visibility into changing surface source conditions. Discover how combining biological indicators with continuous inline spectrometry delivers real-time contamination alerts, preventing costly treatment plant shutdowns and safeguarding consumer health.
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DEXSORB® Treatment At Groundwater Pump Station
Discover how upgrading existing filter infrastructure with advanced adsorbent media provided over 600 days of continuous PFAS removal, treating millions of gallons of contaminated groundwater to achieve strict drinking water compliance.
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DEXSORB® Treatment Of Surface Water For Gravity System
Discover how a dual-vessel lead-lag media system achieved continuous non-detect levels for target legacy contaminants, treating over 250,000 gallons of surface water to support regulatory compliance and municipal drinking water goals.
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Pretreatment Systems Enable Complete And More Economical PFAS Solutions For operators looking to optimize their PFAS removal systems, controlling the presence of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) offers an approach to minimizing operational costs due to granular activated carbon (GAC) reactivation and ion exchange media change-out.
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What Utilities Don't Know About GAC Reuse For PFAS For utilities building PFAS treatment systems, thermal reactivation of spent granular activated carbon (GAC) may sound like the obvious answer. However, service provider availability and location, specific media acceptance criteria including quantity thresholds, restrictions on GAC type and condition, and regulatory uncertainty can all determine whether reuse is a viable option.
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PFAS Funding Is Flowing — But Does The Water Sector Have Enough People To Deliver It? For several years, the PFAS conversation has centered on treatment options, testing, and funding. Those factors still matter, but they are no longer the primary constraint. Most utilities already understand the treatment routes available to them; the real challenge now is moving from technical possibility to operational performance, and that depends entirely on people.
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The Cost Of Waiting: Utilities Face A Narrowing PFAS Compliance Window For years, the water industry's PFAS conversation centered on monitoring, testing, and regulatory anticipation. Today, that phase is largely over.
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D.C. Circuit Upholds EPA's Hazardous Substance Designation For PFOA, PFOS
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently rejected industry challenges to the EPA's designation of PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under CERCLA, leaving the agency's April 2024 rule fully intact. While the case centered on the EPA's authority to make the designation, its practical significance for water utilities is simpler: the liability concerns that have accompanied the rule since its adoption remain unresolved.
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How Donner Summit PUD Cut Backwash Water Use By 45% With Ultrasonic Algae Control
Recurring algal blooms severely compromise water treatment efficiency, clogging filters and wasting finished water through frequent backwashing. Targeted ultrasonic suppression controls raw water algae growth at the source, significantly improving influent turbidity and lowering operational costs.
VIEWS ON THE LATEST REGS
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For years, the water industry's PFAS conversation centered on monitoring, testing, and regulatory anticipation. Today, that phase is largely over.
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The U.S. EPA is testing a new procedural strategy to remove four PFAS drinking‑water limits from ongoing litigation, asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to invalidate those limits on the grounds that the EPA itself committed a procedural misstep when issuing the 2024 PFAS rule.
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Despite renewed public concern over fluoride and cognition, the National Toxicology Program’s findings focus on high‑fluoride groundwater conditions — not the controlled levels used in U.S. drinking water systems. Understanding that distinction is critical for utilities navigating policy questions and community expectations.
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In this Q&A, Dr. Elke Süss of Metrohm addresses the urgent need for haloacetic acid testing in response to “one of the most significant updates to EU drinking water monitoring in recent years.”
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With the U.S. EPA's PFAS rules now in place, utilities are finding themselves with a growing number of questions regarding how to treat these chemicals, the potential costs, and much more. For answers, Water Online's chief editor, Kevin Westerling, hosted an Ask Me Anything session featuring Ken Sansone, Senior Partner at SL Environmental Law Group; Kyle Thompson, National PFAS Lead at Carollo Engineers; and Lauren Weinrich, Principal Scientist at American Water.
MORE WATER INDUSTRY FEATURES
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Regulated PFAS limits necessitate efficient, long-term treatment strategies. Ion exchange technology offers a high-capacity, small-footprint solution that outperforms traditional media. Learn how selective resins provide a cost-effective path to compliance and simplified utility operations.
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Ultrafiltration offers a precise way to concentrate and purify proteins while removing smaller molecules. Learn how technique choice and membrane selection influence recovery, purity, and consistency.
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An optimized in vitro transcription (IVT) platform enables scalable, high-yield, and cost-efficient mRNA therapeutic production by leveraging data-driven process optimization and enzyme innovation to overcome key manufacturing challenges.
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Calgon Carbon’s Dr. Angela Rodriguez shares insights on PFAS treatment, regulatory readiness, sustainability, and how innovative carbon technologies help utilities balance compliance, cost control, and environmental goals.
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Microbial testing of environmental water demands efficient, contamination‑resistant workflows. Discover a membrane filtration technique that offers rapid, reliable colony isolation.
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Surface water supplies most urban drinking water, but rising variability and contamination are straining ageing infrastructure—making digital planning tools essential for resilient, future-ready treatment systems.
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Learn how scanners used for high resolution metrology measurements should be designed and tested for flatness of motion, particularly for atomic force microscopy (AFM).
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Amid scrutiny of the financial conflicts of interest in biomedical research, new federal rules aim to improve transparency and preserve the integrity of publicly funded research.
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Industrial pollution increasingly threatens clean groundwater. Learn how UV advanced oxidation permanently destroys resilient micropollutants like 1,4-dioxane and VOCs at the molecular level, while simultaneously providing robust pathogen disinfection without chemical byproducts.
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Explore how Fc engineering transforms antibodies into precise therapeutic tools by modulating immune effector functions and extending half-life to improve patient outcomes and overcome complex clinical challenges.
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Calgon Carbon’s AquaKnight GC systems are designed from the top down to improve flow, adsorption, and media life.
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Explore a UPLC-UV method using Empower 3 Software to assess synthetic peptide purity. Learn how integrated tools streamline impurity tracking, data reporting, and compliance in peptide analysis workflows.
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Implementing California's updated cross-connection policy requires managing multi-year hazard assessment schedules and strict staffing rules. Digital compliance tracking streamlines field data collection, validates tester credentials, and maintains continuous state audit readiness.
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Understanding covalent warhead kinetics is key to reducing safety risks early in discovery. Learn about a new approach to GSH‑based measurements that offers clearer predictors of toxicity.
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Nanobubble physics enable higher ozone stability and mass transfer efficiency in water. Discover how the negative surface charge of these microstructures improves localized oxidation and penetration into difficult matrices.
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Drought conditions force utilities to seek new water sources, yet reducing non-revenue water offers an immediate supply boost. Eliminating sample waste and targeting line flushing recovers fully treated water without expensive capital projects.
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AAV %Full analysis must distinguish full, empty, and partial capsids, with complementary methods selected according to sample characteristics, analytical needs, development stage, and context.
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Evaluating the use of activated carbon and other media for water treatment is a crucial step to ensure project goals are achieved.