WATER INDUSTRY FEATURES, INSIGHTS, AND ANALYSIS
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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.
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SRP-Funded Technology Provides Affordable PFAS Testing For Homeowners
Widespread chemical contamination leaves many small water systems without viable testing options.Discover how an innovative, plant-based extraction method delivers affordable, highly accurate screening to identify complex contaminants and protect public health.
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The Enzyme Bottleneck: Why Conventional Lake Management Is Failing — And What The Science Says About Genuine Bio-Dredging For decades, the dominant framework for assessing and managing lake health has been built around surface water measurements: chlorophyll-a, total phosphorus, water clarity, and the composite Trophic State Index derived from them. These metrics are familiar, standardized, and widely accepted. They are also, according to a growing body of peer-reviewed literature, measuring the wrong part of the lake.
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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Evaluating Powdered Activated Carbon through site-specific performance testing allows water utilities to optimize chemical dosing based on real-world efficacy rather than upfront price, preventing costly operational strains and ensuring reliable contaminant removal.
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Ozone and UV-AOP each offer powerful contaminant removal for drinking water, wastewater, and reuse applications. Their unique strengths—and potential synergy—help utilities meet diverse treatment goals efficiently.
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Single-future design assumptions are no longer sufficient. See what scenario modelling reveals about building treatment infrastructure that performs across decades of uncertainty.
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Biomanufacturing leaders unite to optimize exosome/EV production. Explore their combined upstream/downstream approach for optimized cell culture, purification, and quality control.
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Understanding how to fine-tune pH and ionic strength allows for the detection of truncated sequences and single-nucleotide variants, turning complex purification challenges into reproducible data.
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A CDMO guide to implementing EU Annex 1 for modern sterile fill/finish facilities, covering cleanroom design, contamination control, utilities, personnel, monitoring, and audit essentials.
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Manual grab sampling for chlorine residual compliance burdens operators with excessive drive time and laboratory costs. Adopting continuous, certified online monitoring satisfies regulatory reporting requirements while freeing technical staff for higher-priority operational tasks.
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How one utility got ahead of customer request sampling instead of falling behind on it.
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Critical water tunnels require efficient structural renewal to meet strict shutdown schedules. Certified geopolymer mortar provides a cost-effective, high-strength solution that eliminates groundwater infiltration and improves water quality while ensuring a 70-year service life for essential aqueduct systems.
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Taking a proactive approach to compliance can help minimize regulatory risks, avoid submission delays, and ensure continued market access.
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As water scarcity and energy costs rise, new ultrafiltration membrane technologies deliver higher flux, longer lifespan, and reduced fouling — turning water treatment from a compliance task into an efficiency opportunity.
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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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Legacy oilfield contamination requires advanced strategies to protect vital groundwater. Explore the technical challenges of subsurface remediation and how advanced oxidation processes provide a more effective pathway for destroying persistent hydrocarbons and restoring aquifer quality.
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UV AOP performance verification requires a robust test matrix covering design, operating, and control conditions. This process includes on-site execution, sample analysis, and troubleshooting to achieve successful regulatory approval.
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High refolding yields aren’t enough. Learn how analytical characterization, structural equivalence testing, and optimized fermentation reduce scale-up risk and improve quality.
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Switch to rapid sequencing-based contaminant detection to accelerate advanced therapy release timelines, minimize batch rejection risks, and bypass slow, culture-based testing methods.
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This case study demonstrates the effectiveness of a new technology for removing PFAS from well water to below the EPA’s detection limits.
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The Toledo water crisis exposed treatment gaps, highlighting harmful algal blooms as a core design challenge requiring flexible, multi-barrier systems and scenario-based planning.