Grants and Contracts per year
Grants and Contracts Details
Description
The proposed project addresses five of Kentucky’s water research priorities – 1. Water
hazards (understanding infrastructure relations to acute and chronic hazards), 2. Water
quality (minimize human and environmental health risks from legacy and emerging water
contaminants), 3. Water policy, planning, and socioeconomics (enhance effectiveness and
robustness of water-related infrastructure planning, complete informative, integrated water
resource models), 4. Watershed and ecosystem function (advance science, outreach, and
education to improve/maintain the condition of ecosystem and drainage basin functions to
ensure the provision of ecosystem services, and 5. Workforce development and water
literacy (Enhance programmatic capacity in science communications; Increase capacity
and opportunities to share and translate research results with stakeholders; increase
experiential education opportunities for students, including students from underrepresented
and underserved groups). The Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed new
maximum contaminant limits (MCLs) for six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
including PFOA (4 ppt) and PFOS (2 ppt) for drinking water. While these levels are much
lower than aquatic life ambient water quality criteria including chronic water
concentrations for PFOA (94,000,000 ppt) and PFOS (8,400,000 ppt), 95% of Kentucky is
dependent on surface water, resulting in downstream locations utilizing a portion of
WWTP effluent for drinking water treatment. Surface water sources are not uncommon for
other regions of the United States, with a 2015 USGS report on public-supply water use
reporting 61% of total water withdrawals were from fresh surface-water sources14,
presenting an urgent concern for source water protection and potential treatment
methodologies 15. While there have been several recent studies investigating environmental
occurrence of PFAS leaving WWTPs16–19, investigations of the fate, transport,
bioaccumulation, and biomagnification of PFAS in riparian and wetland ecosystems
downstream from wastewater treatment plants have been limited in the United States20–26.
Therefore, the proposed study will provide important information on the implications of
PFAS to wetland biogeochemical processes and the potential for PFAS removal in these
practices in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Further, a better understanding of the
potential for PFAS to be transported and accumulate in Kentucky best management
practices will be established. The proposed project will provide opportunities for a graduate
student and an undergraduate student by engaging with USGS researchers working on
PFAS method development, developing expertise in monitoring of PFAS in best
management practices, and training in environmental chemistry for PFAS extraction and
analysis in a USDA laboratory located on the University of Kentucky campus.
Status | Active |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 9/1/21 → 8/31/26 |
Funding
- US Geological Survey
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Projects
- 1 Active
-
104B Water Resources Research Institute Annual Base Program 2021-2026
Unrine, J., Ormsbee, L., Arpin, S., Barton, C., Brewster-Barnes, T., Byrne, D., Crofcheck, C., D'Angelo, E., Durham, R., Erhardt, A., Evans, S., Ford, W., Fryar, A., Koyagi, E., Lee, B., Messer, T., Moe, L., Sena, K., Shelley, J., Shultis, A., Tobin, B. & Weisrock, D.
9/1/21 → 8/31/26
Project: Research project