PFAS and The Plans for A New Water Treatment Facility

By SOHANI GAUNIYAL For The Loveland Daily

Everyone drinks water. But, for a number of towns around Ohio, this basic need has become a nightmare as city governments grapple with both the presence of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances in the water and the nebulous upcoming regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency meant to contain them. 

In 2020 Ohio EPA testing revealed the presence of PFAS in Loveland’s drinking water. The city suddenly found itself grappling with a big issue.

Previously, federal regulations were set to take effect in 2029. However, these regulations have quickly become a moving target. First, there were talks about extending the deadline to 2031. Now, the EPA recently announced intentions to roll back the regulations for four PFAS, as well as extending the compliance deadlines for two others.

Regardless, Loveland wanted to get ahead as soon as PFAS were detected. They engaged engineering firm Burgess and Niple in a water softening study, which they then used to contract AECOM to design a new plant to remove PFAS from Loveland’s water after receiving a $1.3 million principal forgiveness funding award from the OPEA.

The new water plant

The City of Loveland does not treat their water a great deal; rather, they pump water from wells connected a natural aquifer, which John Krinks, AECOM’s head engineer on the project, described as “pristine.” The water is simply treated with chlorine and fluoride. Due to this, Loveland will be building an entirely new treatment facility to combat PFAS.

“This will be a brand-new building with granular activated carbon contactors ... we're going to be having all new chemical feed facilities ... we'll have a residual holding and processing tank. We'll have a finished water storage tank. We'll have some new pumps in there, a small office laboratory area,” said Krinks. 

Assistant City Manager Chris Wojnicz estimates that around the first quarter of next year, the design for the new plant will be complete. From there, it is mainly a matter of funding to get construction underway, which, according to the AECOM basis of design, will take twenty-three months to complete. Krinks, Wojnicz, and the basis of design all estimated the cost to be around $17 million, a tall order for Loveland. Though they recently began receiving settlement money from Dupont and other companies after a class action lawsuit, the amount cannot cover the cost of construction. “We anticipate receiving around $2,000,000 in settlement monies, but that's over 10 years,” Wojnicz said.

The basis of design further estimates that there will be $327 thousand in yearly operation and maintenance costs. The city has established a PFAS fund and has looked into grants, according to Wojnicz. The new building is planned to be constructed in Bodley Park, near where the existing well facility currently is. As some of the area is located in a floodplain, some parts of the new site will require engineered fill in order to avoid any danger of flooding, according to the plant’s design. While Krinks said there may be some disruption to the soccer season, as Bodley Park is home to some fields, overall, there should not be much impact on citizens while construction is underway.

The mechanism of removal

In Loveland's new facility, GAC will be implemented via standalone pressure vessels. Essentially, these pressure vessels will have granular activated carbon media, which the untreated water will pass through, allowing the media to absorb the target PFAS. Krinks claimed that GAC can remove 100% of PFOS and other long-chain compounds to below detection level, as long as the media is not exhausted. There will be two contactors in a series in a lag and lead structure, and three series total, according to Krinks and the AECOM basis of design. The pipe between the two contactors will frequently be tested to check for breakthrough from the lead contactor due to exhaustion; in that case, the lag will be made the new lead, and the former lead will be regenerated.

Loveland’s water comes from three different wells. One well, Well 6, was shown to have much higher levels of PFAS in its water than the others, according to the Burgess and Niple study. Editor’s Note: The three wells used in Loveland are not numbered one, two, and three, because those numbers belong to retired wells no longer in use. Well 6’s usage has been reduced to maintenance levels only, though it is planned for it to return to normal levels of use once the GAC contactors are installed, as explained by Wojnicz in a city council meeting in September of 2024. The contactors are tuned to the worst well, so there should be no detrimental impact from reintroducing it to normal usage levels.   GAC generates backwash or residual water as a part of some of its processes, particularly the unloading and reloading of media. There are multiple ways to deal with this backwash. One, which the Burgess and Niple study proposed, was to build a main that would send the water to the sewage plant to be treated. Another was running the water through filters for sediment and then discharging it into the Little Miami River. However, the city did not want to maintain the permit for discharging water into the river, so they pursued a third option.

“We did decide to build a recycle tank on the site that collects that waste. It has some residence time in there to help settle solids, and then all that water is actually just recycled back through the treatment process,” Krinks explained. “Periodically, if you accumulate some media and solid waste in in that tank, it just has to get removed once in a while by a vac truck or other disposal.”

Wojnicz expressed concern about how the media do not truly reduce the amount of PFAS in the environment. When the GAC media is exhausted, it will be shipped back to the provider, who will burn off the substances in a process known as regenerating, he explained. There are “scrubbers” that are supposed to filter the smoke, but they are not 100% effective, leaving the risk of PFAS spreading via tainted rain. Furthermore, those scrubbers ultimately end up in landfills, allowing the PFAS to seep back into the earth.

“It almost looks like a never-ending process…we're just moving it around the earth,” he said.

The views of the public

Sharon Scovanner is a Loveland resident and activist who has been heavily involved in the issue of PFAS in Loveland since 2023. She has frequently been in contact with members of city council about PFAS and informing the public, the latter of which has been her main concern.

“Before I started really clamoring for people to know the truth, they were saying the water was safe,” she said. “That was disturbing.” 

Scovanner does not drink Loveland’s water straight. She has a filter in her fridge, and that water goes into a filtered pitcher. She has a personal link to the issue of contaminated water; her father was stationed at Camp Lejeune, an infamous military base known for concealing its issues with contaminated drinking water. He later passed away from cancer associated with exposure to that contamination.

“When I learned that there was another kind of water contamination in Loveland, it's like … I need to know what to do to protect me and my family,” she said. “Then I felt really drawn to making sure everyone in the community knew. For me, it wasn't good enough that I knew. I couldn't know this information and not share it, because PFAS is really bad.”

Heather Harkins is another citizen of Loveland, having lived in the city since around 1995. She says she only really became aware of PFAS around four years ago.

“I never paid any attention to water, because you just assume your water is safe. Why would it not be?” she said. “I think we assume a lot of things are safe.”

Heather’s daughter, Kirienne Hodges, attends Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, -- just a little under an hour away from Loveland -- and is an environmental studies major. Her introduction to PFAS came during college.

“I never had any specific water-based courses, but I had known that water quality in Oxford here was an issue,” said Harkins. “Until we directly started talking about PFAS, I kind of had no idea of the scope of the problem or like the depth of its effects on human and environmental health, like at all.” 

Both Heather and Kirienne felt that Loveland could have done more to inform the public about its situation. While Harkins and Hodges have been paying attention to the yearly water reports sent by Loveland, each say they may have missed the mailer sent out to its citizens with information about PFAS, and neither knew much about the new plant.

“I think having a community event where they say, ‘we're going to teach you about water quality and … about what these things mean, and applying new science to them,’ that'd be helpful,” said Heather.

Hodges agreed.

“I think if you can get like face-to-face communication and do more community-based events, it can be a lot more helpful and a lot more pressing than if you just receive it in the mail.” 

The promise of the new plant has given Scovanner some hope.

“I want this for our whole community. I really do,” she said. “I'm protecting myself right now, but I worry about the people who aren't. It's going to be wonderful. It really will. I can't wait for it to happen.”

Sharon said she will likely drink Loveland water once the new facility is working, though she will get it tested before fully committing.  Hodges and Harkins felt similarly.

“It makes me feel good about our community to know that there is action and there is push and there have been marked steps that are being taken,” Hodges said.

Harkins particularly appreciated that the new plant would have the added benefit of bringing more attention to the issue overall.

“I mean, water is life, right? People like me who spend years just assuming everything is great -- you don't want a cataclysm. You don't want a Flint, Michigan, to wake people up.”

Sohani Gauniyal is a Loveland High School Graduate and currently attends Ohio University, majoring in journalism. She plays rugby and ultimate frisbee for OU and enjoys birding in her free time.