This forum convened subject matter experts to explore efforts to measure, assess impact, and address emerging contaminants such as microplastics and PFAS. The panelists examined specific challenges, innovative methods, and new areas of study as researchers and practitioners work to address this complex water quality issue. This series is presented by Cleveland Water Alliance, CUAHSI, and The Water Environment Federation.
Welcome, everyone, to the Water Data Forum. This series is focused on engaging a broad professional audience in topics relating to water data. Today's session is focused on data-driven approaches to understanding emerging contaminants or contaminants of emerging concern.
This series is co-presented by the Cleveland Water Alliance, the Water Environment Federation, or WEF, and QWASI. My name is Julia Masterman, my pronouns are she, her, and I'm the education outreach coordinator for QWASI. QWASI is the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Incorporated.
We're a nonprofit organization funded in part by the National Science Foundation, and our mission is to empower the water community and advance science through collaboration, infrastructure, and education. QWASI hosts a domain-specific repository for water science data called HydroShare. We also host a number of webinars, trainings, fellowships, and other educational programs throughout the year, and overall are a nonprofit organization that exists to support the water science community, especially when it comes to data-related challenges.
We would invite you to visit our website, join our mailing list, and reach out. We would love to connect with you. Okay, before we get started today, and we introduce our speakers, a few logistics.
This webinar is being recorded and will be posted on the Cleveland Water Alliance website. Secondly, we ask that you use the Q&A functionality to submit your questions to our speakers. You'll find the Q&A button on your Zoom toolbar, note that it's different from the chat button, and we'll be using that Q&A to field questions. Please feel free to add questions at any time. We'll do our best to get to as many as possible. And with that, let's get started.
Thank you so much to the water data team at Cleveland Water Alliance and at WEF for creating this venue. I'm so excited to learn from our panelists today.
Thank you for joining today.
Austin Baldwin is a research hydrologist at USGS, and Dr. Wagner is a professor at Wayne State University. I'll let them introduce themselves further. But thank you both so much for joining us today. And with that, let's dive in. Screen share. All right.
Could you please introduce yourself and your background in contaminants of emerging concern? Austin, can I, do you want to go first?
Sure. Hey, everybody. I'm Austin Baldwin. I'm a research hydrologist at the USGS at the Idaho Water Science Center in Boise. I've been with USGS for about 18 or 19 years, have studied a pretty wide range of contaminants in surface waters and sediments around the country, especially the Great Lakes and in the Snake River Basin here in Idaho.
So these include organic contaminants, PAHs, pesticides, wastewater chemicals, pharmaceuticals. So a lot of these under the emerging contaminant umbrella, as well as mercury and other metals and microplastics.
And my focus is really on understanding sources, bioavailability, and biological effects of these contaminants.
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Wagner?
Hi. I'm Yumi Wager and I'm a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Wayne State University. And I'm also the director of two microplastic projects that is funded by Great Lakes Protection Fund.
One of them is current project we are going on. It is mobilizing a Great Lakes microplastic action network. So my research and teaching interest is a wide area of the water quality and water treatment and contaminants of emerging concern. So particularly in recent years, we have been doing a lot of work on microplastics.
So my main interest is to look at the pollution source prevention and also use data-driven to empower community to take actions.
Thanks so much. Next question is, what does the landscape of this field look like today? I guess we can keep going in the same order.
Sure. Yeah. So from my perspective, one of the big areas of research currently is trying to understand which chemicals matter the most. So there's hundreds, thousands of chemicals in the environment and our lab methods are constantly improving to the point where we can detect hundreds of chemicals in a given sample at parts per billions of concentrations, mostly very low concentrations. So which of these are important?
Many of these probably don't pose much of a risk to aquatic organisms or humans, but some probably do.
And watershed managers are faced with this question of which ones do we prioritize? Which ones do we try to control the sources of or remediate for? So there's been a lot of work. One way to assess that is water quality guidelines, but water quality guidelines may only exist for 10% of the chemicals in your sample, for example.
So there's some new methods, new approaches that people are using and developing to try to broaden our ability to assess the effects of these chemicals and prioritize these chemicals. So a lot of this work is being done by toxicologists and I'm not a toxicologist, so I just preface that.
But one of the methods that I'm using a lot is based on cellular responses to chemicals. So using these high throughput bioassays, exposing different types of cells to chemicals and looking at like sublethal effects on these cells.
The advantages here are it's faster than developing like water quality guidelines, which are done on whole organisms and have some concerns there.
These cellular approaches are faster, they're cheaper, they're more humane, and they provide information on these potential sublethal effects, which these whole organism exposures don't provide. So I think it's a pretty exciting development in the last, I'd say, eight to 10 years. It's really been ramping up and it's really changing the landscape of how we can evaluate and prioritize chemicals of emerging concern.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, I completely agree. I think right now there are so many, I mean, there's many chemicals out there in the environment and some of those chemicals are out there for a long time, but just recently, in the That's why I call that chemical of emerging concern. It's not because that they are not there before. It's just because that we just realized that their impact on our ecological and human health. So with that many of chemicals out there, I think prioritize that. That's really the first step to see like what kind of chemical that will make most significant impact on our ecological and human health. And I also want to say what's next level it is to develop some like standard, needs standard and criteria for risk assessment.
So basically, for example, we know that PFAS microplastics are out there. We also know there are some evidence, there are some coronation between the human health and those chemicals out there.
However, I think there is a lot unknown about at what level, at what concentration, at what kind of exposure level that's matter. So I think there is still a lot of work needs to be done and we need a lot of data to set up those criteria and standard. Another point I also want to add it is, I'm always interested in a pollution prevention.
It's because we know that those chemicals, any type of those chemicals, once they are out there, it's so challenging to clean up.
So basically, it's like you collect a needle from the sea, like the microplastics, PFAS, they are so tiny, microplastics are so tiny. So once they are there, it's very hard to remove them.
So I think it's most important it is to prevent them entering into the environment from the very beginning.
So again, that is also needs data supported, for example, what it is major pollution sources and pathways.
So with all those that we've seen, I think a lot of work needs to be done, but good thing is many work has started to look into those things.
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate your two different approaches to this field. So thank you. So relating to that, what data-related limitations, risks, or barriers currently limit the ability to understand the emerging contaminant that you work on?
Yongle, you want to go first on this one?
Yeah, we can take a turn. As I said, first, I think there's a lot of progress out there. There's many research and studies published. There's many data available, but there's still some limitation and challenges there.
I would want to say one of the big limitation or challenging for, take microplastic as example, since I'm working on that a lot. So the microplastic itself is very complicated. So their impact on human health and ecological health is not just depends on the size, basically their size matter, their shapes matter.
So typically the smaller size, that means the more biologically significance that could be on human health and ecological health. So if the microplastic is basically smaller than 20 micrometer, that's recommended by WHO, that's World Health Organization. When it's smaller than 20 micrometer, that is most biologically relevant because that's easier to enter our human body and penetrate our organ to cause all those adverse impact. So size matter and shapes matter as well.
And another complication of the microplastic, it is chemical compositions because there's so many additives that in microplastic. So we also need to understand the chemical property of those plastics. And to make it more complicated, it is the plastics. It is because they have a microplastic, they have a larger surface area, so they can easily absorb other contaminants like other chemicals, like persistent chemicals, heavy metals.
So it's really complicated to understand those, how those different perspective or different property of those microplastic that can have on the ecological and human health.
I think in the recent years, there is a lot of research going on that people use animal study or use a similar work and use or just do like survey. You can see, I know the last two years, people have some evidence that found the microplastic in human blood, in human blood and in human lungs.
So all those, but we still, I think the challenge it is, with that complicated problem or those complicated issues, how to analyze all this data in the same framework, how to standardize that in what level, what concentration it matter.
I think that's one of the biggest challenge there.
Yeah, I'll just add to on the microplastics topic. The lack of standardization in terms of sample collection, I think is a big barrier. People are still collecting microplastics in a lot of different ways and analyzing them in different ways. And so it's really hard to compare across studies still. I think there's been a lot of progress towards standardizing, but I think we're, we still have a little ways to go on that front.
That's great. Yeah. I also want to add another comment about like the pollution sources, since I'm always interested in that. Like microplastic, they can come from various pollution sources and like the primary plastics that's typically used in a lot of industry, like using industry as abrasive, like washing, smooshing, and also that's primaries. Basically those plastic is intentionally made in a micro size or nano size. And another source is a secondary sources. So basically secondary sources that's break down from large pieces. So for example, those plastic debris that left out in the environment and after a certain period, I mean, they are not going to disappear, but they are just break down to smaller and smaller particles that we cannot see. They are still there.
So with so many, and also the sources could come from like point sources, non-point sources. So there are so many pollution sources and pathways.
I think another challenge is also we need some data or data driven approach to how to more efficiently to manage those plastic pollution.
Yeah. One more limitation related to like water quality guidelines is basically the lack of water quality guidelines for so many of the chemicals that are out there. So in some of the recent studies I've been involved with, some of the most frequently detected chemicals, we have no water quality guidelines or toxicity information for.
So it's really hard to know like, well, this chemical is everywhere, but does it matter? So again, kind of going back to my earlier response, the lack of water quality guidelines is a limitation.
Yeah, thanks. I hadn't even thought about the porous nature of the microplastics holding other contaminants. That's another interesting dimension I hadn't considered before as well.
Yeah, that's why it's so complicated. I know there's research they found like the microplastics in the surface because it's, I mean, the particles itself is small, but the surface area, basically the smaller particles, they have a larger surface area.
So they can easily absorb like metals. They found the metals and other persistent chemicals absorbed in microplastics. So when it's entering into an environment or human body, so that also take those carry, it's like a vector.
So basically it's like a vector to carry other things.
Yeah, wow. All right I guess in your view, if it could be implemented at scale, what would have the largest impact towards addressing the challenges you see now?
We touched a little bit about water quality standards and some source, identifying sources, but in terms of next steps, what do you think are, what would have the largest impact?
Well, at risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll go back to knowing the toxicity of chemicals and chemical companies being more accountable for or, you know, the onus being on the chemical companies rather than on, for example, like EPA or regulatory bodies after the fact. So, you know, right now a chemical company can basically create a new chemical and put it in their product and then we start to see it in the environment and then we have to determine like, is it harmful or not?
And it's a game of constant catch up that we're hopelessly losing because there's so many chemicals being developed and the rate of that is so much higher than the rate of being able to test these chemicals on the backend.
And, you know, especially in the current environment that there's just not a lot of interest or money to test all these chemicals.
So I, yeah, I also, I think that's with all those chemicals out there, I think like the one of the probably largest impact that we can do, it is empower people's action.
So that's actually one of our project is trying to do is basically to collect and analyze the data and then use those data, analyze the results to communicate with public and with communities.
And then how, I mean, surely we need to engage in different stakeholders at different level, right? Like incorporation, industry, government. But I think the first thing at least we can do, it is from each individual.
I think I can say a very positive sign or positive trend is like talking plastics and microplastics, there's more, a lot of more and more people increasingly realize that impact of those things and then they're willing to take action.
So we have been working with many community partners to basically to public outreach, education, and then use our expertise and then to communicate with our community partners, because a lot of our community partners when I communicate with them, they are willing to take actions. So they are willing to go out to talk to people.
And also a lot of people show interest in, they want to contribute to reduce those pollutions, either plastics or other pollutions. I think the same it is with data, with information.
So how we communicate with our communities and individuals, public and different stakeholders, I think that's probably one thing that we can, everyone can immediately do that.
Thanks. Yeah, before we start taking questions from the Q&A, thank you. If you in the audience have any additional questions that we should go into, feel free to start posting them now. But relating to that, what you just mentioned, Yongli, about that people are engaged, that when you speak with the community, people want to do something. Speaking to both of you, is there work out there that gives you hope? Are there examples of things that are going on that you see as a positive change in this area?
I can start with that.
I just started community work. As I mentioned, I do see, I think I'm a little optimistic, I do see a lot of positive change or positive trend in many, many like different levels, stakeholders, public, individual, community organizations, industry. Just take example, we have been working with many, many community partners.
So some of them actually reach out to us. So I'm a researcher, right? So typically, sometimes I will reach out to the communities, but a lot of this work related like microplastic and plastic is many of our community partners, individual, reach out to us.
They basically, they send us email, hey, I know, we know you are doing some microplastic analysis, microplastic monitoring, can we join you?
Like we can volunteer to do something. So that's really, I think that's really an exciting sign that people and the public are really, they care. So basically, they care about the environment. So take example, it is that when we just started our microplastic project last year, that's our second phase of the project.
So basically, it's development data tool to understand the hotspot of microplastic and understand what's the major pollution sources and pathways in particular locations. And we just started that. And there's multiple community partners and reach out to us. They volunteer to join our meeting to learn about microplastics, to understand what's microplastics.
Probably some of them, they hear a little about it, but not much there. So they know a lot of, I mean, we know each other, right? So we know their communities. They know from our experience about what microplastics, what are there, how they're impacted there. And also, they volunteer to help us with fieldwork.
So basically, we go to their work with their community partners to, all right, so for example, they bring their concerns. For example, they think, all right, this watershed, or this lake, or this river, they have concerns.
So they help us to go to collect those samples to analyze the data. And with those data, and they can communicate those data with their public in a specific community.
And then they can take action. So that's really, I think that's really exciting. It's exciting that we, as a researcher, that's I'm seeing in the past few years.
Another example, it is we can also see a lot of like industry corporation responsibility and initiative they are taking. Just take example, we attend a recycling conference in May. We talked to, like there are a lot of industry, like startup industry, they doing composting business.
They come to take the talk to us. And also, they are interested in the things of composting. They also want to learn the best management of how to reduce plastics, or PFAS, or other chemicals in the composting.
So we can, we really can say a lot of those positive things are happening right now.
Yeah. Along the lines of that corporate responsibility, I think one example is 6PPD-quinone. So if you're not familiar with this, this is a very emerging contaminant, or emerging concern. It's a chemical that's put in tires to prevent them from breaking down in sunlight and anti-ozonant.
But when tires wear, this chemical wears along with it, and it eventually ends up in streams, and it's very toxic to some salmon. So it's been observed a lot in the Pacific Northwest, like Seattle and stuff like that.
And chemical company, or sorry, tire companies are, rather than just denying this or saying it's not their fault, they're working alongside toxicologists to try to understand the mode of the toxicity and to explore alternatives to this chemical.
Because it serves an important role, so we can't just take it out of tires. But I think everybody recognizes that we need to find an alternative for it.
So I think that's a great sign, and maybe something that we wouldn't have seen 20 years ago.
Yeah, that's cool here. Okay, let's take a few questions from the Q&A here. Here's the first one, a question about managing plastic pollution. Of course, reducing plastic pollution is the best option, but are there better ways to dispose of the plastic that we do have, so that the microplastics are less likely to be widely distributed in water supplies and the environment? You're on mute.
Sorry, I'm looking at the question, I didn't realize that I'm on mute. So I can start the question, I can start with that. I think that's a great question. I think by generally saying manage microplastic pollution, so it's basically like the how to dispose, a better way to dispose of plastic is definitely one of the approaches or one of the ways that we can better manage those plastic pollutions.
So it's basically, it is, for example, for the disposal of plastic right now, we do recycle, right, from a waste management perspective. We do recycle, we try to recycle as much as we can. And for those that we cannot recycle, so typically they go to landfill.
And then surely, I think for future better management, we definitely should increase the recycle rate and also to reduce those plastic to landfill. I think a good, I think one really important about microplastics, it is those debris, like those plastic that's just left out in the environment intentionally or unintentionally.
I think that's, it's probably related to more like education and more education or more management, because a lot of the time, sometimes it's just left out there. And so if we go to the park, we always can see some plastic packaging out there. I think education is a key to reduce those debris out there.
And also there is another, I think, again, come back to the responsibility, corporation responsibility. I know for some plastic, it's really hard to recycle, like the plastic bag, like the grocery shopping bag, right?
So it's really hard to recycle because it will wrap up with those recycling facilities. So for those, for managing those, like non-recyclable, so it's probably the way to do is to try to reuse them. I know there are some grocery stores, they set up some bins there, so that basically you can put the grocery shopping bags back into their bins, into their grocery, and then can take it back.
Or also reduce the use, and like use, instead of using grocery shopping bag, to use some reusable bag. Those, yeah, there is a lot management perspective and topic education perspective, topic behavior perspective.
So it's, I have to say, it is a systematic approach with many, many perspective approaches together.
Thanks. Austin, anything you'd like to add?
I guess a couple of things that came to my mind. One is microplastics from dryer vents, dryer vents are a pretty big source of microplastics to the atmosphere. And it's hard to eliminate that completely, but an easy thing on a personal level is just making sure you have a screen on your dryer vent.
Yeah I guess that's one thing that I thought I’d add.
Yeah that’s helpful. That actually leads similarly into another question that we received. There was a recent article showing that glass containers have more microplastics plastic bottles. Is this accurate? And what are we to use that’s the safes right now? Ah, I think this question and leads to a larger question that I had maybe for you Youngly about.
There's a lot of information out there talking about microplastics and sometimes it can be feel a little bit scaremongering. What misconceptions do you see in your work with the community and also i mean if you have an answer to this question as well about the glass containers.
That's interesting. I think I came to glimpse that article, I have not read it yet i think i glimpsed the article just a few days ago.
Ah, but be honest i have not read the yet. So one about glass container, that’s very interesting observation or very interesting research finding. I think I need more time to digest that, without any more data I would not say I agree or disagree that. So that's another crisis thats another example that es so important because I think with one research, I need to go yto look at their research methodology and the how they find those microplastic in the glass container, where it come from the glass container it is from the like the top cover o it's from the glass itself so i have to say that is something I probably cannot give any definite answer right now for that questions.
But that is definitely an interesting question.
I’m not familiar with that specific study either, buy I’m imagining this source of the plastic to the glass is in the bottling process when the glass bottle is open, you know going around in the bottling plant and there’s plastic in the air getting into it.
What the solution is? I don’t know, but I think that’s probably how a glass bottle is getting microplastic in it.
Yeah thanks. Ah, there a kind of comment and helpful context in the Q&A from Colin. Plastic recycling facilities can be also contributors of microplastics in the ecosystem. They did a research project on PET polymer recycling a PET polymer recycling facility and the waste water from the crushing washing and floating sinking process contain an enormous magnitude of microplastics and many of those were regularly shaped.
Most industries are doing mechanical recycling. However, chemical recycling could be a good step.
That’s a great comment. That’s exactly what we are trying to understand right now, As our counter project going on, we do have partners form recycling facil from recycling industry. When we talk to them I think one of the first things we communicate with those partners is recycling industry with questions and discussions. We are also considering to look into the waste water from recycling facility. That’s actually great comments. I think we are in the same place.
We have not collect data yet, but I would imagine or assume that with this mechanical washing and with those mechanical pressure washing water, there’s a high likely that there’s going to produce some micropkastics in the waste washing water in recycling facility.
But that’s definitely a worth of a further investigation and a further look into that.
This may be directed to you Austin perhaps, is there any government data available about the status of plastic pollution in water andor soils across the entire United States?
No, as far as I know and I think I would know, there hasn’t been any large coordinated government funded effort to do a study like that, you know to do a comprehensive study of microplastics across the US whether it be in water or soil or sediment.
There have been some you know regional or you know some studies but I would say not large government funded studies or data sets. Something I’ve struggled with and maybe Young too, like there’s a lot of public interest in micoplastics, like more than any other contaminant I’ve ever worked with, but getting funding to actually study microplastics is pretty challenging for my experience.
It is, I think I agree Austin. I just want to add a comment there. I think that’s a great question, because I think whenever we talk about any chemicals or chemicals concerns. People first think about, I want to know where they are, what level they are. So basically like that question what is microplastic level in the soil in our water in our soil and water across United States or Canada. So that’s actually one of the main work we are doing right now. We have project funded by great lakes protection fund. I think I agree with you Austin it’s hard to get fund from federal agency but luckily we got osme funding from some fund great lakes protection fund.
So with that funding we just started last year, we ar developing a data tool. So those data tool will including, so our idea is to basically develop a data tool. So this data tool can collect those data that’s already published out there and then so basically we’re going to extract the data from those already published papers report, there’s tons of the paper out there already published.
Like they look at the microplastic soil in water across United States and Canada, so the first is going to work extracts those data from those published data and then we also work with our community partners to collect the data like from their interest. So that’s our goal with that data tool developed. So we can compile those existing data and then incoming ongoing data collection. So we have a bigger picture of what those microplastics are, where are those hot spot. So that’s is actually, we are doing right now our data is right now in a alpha version testing. So we plan to probably launch the data tool next year. So if anyone is interested feel free to reach out to me and then I will be happy to share. So we’ll make the date tool public probably in one and a half years.
Great. Very exciting. All right. This question I think is aimed primarily to you Austin. What is the timeline or process from collecting samples and determining toxology to actually publicly defining a Chemical as a contaminant and providing concentration limits?
Okay. So this is not something I do. I'm somewhat familiar with it so the process for defining like a water quality Chemical is you know a entity like the EPA.
Does all kind of testing and they gather all kinds of data from toxicity testing, to determine whats the concentration at which this is gonna be Protective of a life for you know ninety five percent of species tested or something like that. And then they’ll set a criterion, you know, a concentration value.
Ah, so that's usually does not take into account what the concentrations are you know in the environment it's purely the toxicology question, so there's you know collecting samples in the environment doesn't really doesn't really factor into that usually.
But you know seeing chemicals in the evironment frequently can you know sometimes trigger tha process like in the Great Lakes for example we would see some chemicals frequently it didn't guidelines and you know we are working with EPA to try to get those chemicals on their list of chemicals to test.
So I guess I don’t know if that answers the question.
Yeah I think so.
If you ask thequestion with like additional context please feel free to submit another to clarifying the question.
Ok, this is a question about PFAS and I know neither of you work specifically with PFAS, but wondering if you have additional context on this. What do you see as the most significant PFAS source and contamination pathways? What are the most promising mitigation strategies environmental contamination?
So I been kind of close to some PFAS work but haven’t done a lot myself. There are so many sources of PFAS to the environment. You know form our clothing to like food wrappers to you know a big source a big point source is firefighting foam so like air force bases are commonly contaminated areas, but I honestly don’t know like if you tried to parse out contributions from all these different sources what source is the primary source. I haven’t seen that and I can’t give an answer on that.
Sorry Kathy, that’s a great question maybe in future webinars we’ll get more into the PFAS things.
Ok if there are any other questions please feel free to put them in the chat.But I guess we can go back to the last question we had prepared ahead of time.
How do data focused approaches factor into the future of work and we've talked a little bit about this and you spoke about your new data data tool but maybe reframing the question.
In your work with community stakeholders when you are bringing data communicating them how is those conversations gone?
Are there lessons learned in terms of, you know, bringing data to the community?
Have you learned more about how to communicate data through that experience? What lesson from communicating complicated scientific data to a community of stakeholders who maybe don't have the same data literacy that you do.
That's a great question actually so that's something I think as a scientist that something I’ve been learning and I'm still learning.We do have some in our project we do have like have some professionals in communication, to help my work so. So I personally work most in Science data like the field work collect samples, process sample, analyze data, collect data analyze and then we get help from our communication experts to go out to talk to our community partners or talk to the public.
I think one lesson to learn form my experience it is, how to communicate with public to emphasiza the significance of the issue but not like overwhelming with fear. I think that's so important basically how to communicate in a positive way with those data that is something we have been learning because we want to acknowledge those problems there.
But we also at the same time don’t want to cause fear out there, so I think that's something we have been learning in our communication. And another way it is to use some simple message, that's typically the challenge from a scientific community. How to learn to convert those complicated scientific data into some language or some message that is simple and easier to be understood.
Yeah it's absolutely a different type of skill than than I think what most scientists necessarily signed up for so I'm always curious about, how different folks are addressing it how to how to communicate effectively and productively I guess when trying to work with community members.
Some examples, we had another project that is a few years ago that also about micro when we started that project, not many public realize that concern o realize problem. So we hosted some like folks group in like the community like one is in Metro City area, basically residents in the City another is in more of a rural area group so we basically we send this invitation to those residents in the community, we host like the Twenty to thirty people at each time and we have like a session in each community and we just talk and communicate what's their perpective about micro plastics and what they think of the concern microplastic and then what they think is efficient to address those problems. So after those folks group and then we have some report and then we also develop some Graphic information so we have all those Materials, public outreach material that include, reports, lessons, graphic flyer in our website so if anyone is interested feel free to reach out to me I can direct to you to the right website. Actually I’ll put it right here.
Pivoting back to an audience question that’s more high level. Is there a standard definition for an emerging contain? Back 50 years ago we considered VOCC’s from industrial activities as emerging contaminants. Does any agency specifically define an emerging contaminant?
Yeah this a great point. No, I think that was a short answer. And I think this is why there’s been maybe a shift towards calling them contaminants of emerging concern rather than emerging contaminants because a lot of these, like I’ve said, a lot of these have been in the environment or been in use for a long time. We’re just now noticing them or becoming aware of them. So I would say, but there is no definition, you know loosely it’s just contaminants that we’re concerned about and we don’t know a lot about, is how I think about them.
And there is no organization or government entity that’s like charged with defining those.
Has there been a contaminant that just becomes of concern? Like is there one where you eventually it's no longer emerging concern? We’ve learned enough about it that it’s now just a toxin that we measure or are we not there yet.
I think you know maybe like PCBs or some you know things like that, they’ve been around a long time. We’ve been concerned about them for a long time. And we’ve studied them a lot and they’re no longer entering the environment for the most part. So I guess that would be one example where we’ve taken it off the list of emerging concerns.
This will probably be the last question from the audience. What measure should be into account when sampling for emerging contaminants for example PPCP analysis both in field measurements and in lab activities.
I can comment. PPCP is pharmaceutical and personal care products. So as far as measurements that should be taken like concurrent with a sample, honesty I can’t think of any measure critical to take at that time in the field. You know it never hurts to take like water temperature and some things like some basic things like that but, I guess to me the more important thing is things you can do to avoid contaminating that sample. So for example, you know I've been told when I'm sampling pharmaceuticals and personal care products to like, you know you, don’t want to wear perfume.
Some say you shouldn’t use deodorant because it could contaminate the sample.
You don’t want to have lotions and stuff on your hands. You don't wanna wear DE, which you know sometimes can be a challenge when you sampling. DE is very commonly contaminate samples. So I guess that's what occur to me is more like things that you shouldn't do rather than things that you know measurements that you should take with along with the sample.
Yeah I completely agree. I also want to add a comments about the water contamination, that’s definitely one critical sin, like plastics microplastic, when we go out samples, we also recommend to try to use containers. So for example you want to grab samples not to use a plastic container to grab samples. And wear a lab coat, when we are in the lad or also another thing I want to mention for the measurement it is also always include, validation control, negative control, positive control.
So like when we do our process, our samples, we always have a negative control. So basically nectar is basically pure water goes throughthe same process go through the same collection and storage sample processing and the sample analyze processing. So we know if there is some contaminations what’s level of contamination there. We also always include a positive control, it is for the methodology we are using were we know quantity of the microplastics. So we know how much of those are there or if we spect 100 particle there and after all those sample processing and analyzing how many of the particle we analyze. Do we analyze like 80% of them or 70% of them, 60% of them, so I have to say that the sample processing and analyze validation is also very important. Again I think for those chemicals emerging concern and that’s why we just started to investigate in the past decade or a the past few years, I think there is a lot of work to do to standardized methods, how to standardize sample process and analytical methods.
That’s very important and I know there are actually some government labs working and doing that, in California has been published sort of a standard on how to monitor microplastics in drinking water. That’s about like a 20 micrometer. However they have to methods, one is FTR that is looking at a microplastic larger than 20 micrometer, but for the small microplastics that’s still very challenging because the smaller the size it is harder to detect, and with that saying there’s more work yo be done to develop those standard methods.
That’s perfect, you’ve brought us full circle and perfect timing as well I think it's about to wrap up our conversation here. Thank you both so much for joining us today. I enjoyed our conversation and thank you for taking the time to share your expertise.
As we wrap up I do want to leave a plug for the next webinar in the water data forum series, which will take place in november about the us water West regulatory Landscape stay tune for that and with that thank you so much for joining, we had over a hundred attendees so thank you so much for taking the time today.
Yeah thanks everybody thanks for the questions.
Thanks everyone, thanks for all the questions and thanks Julia for hosting this.
Thank you alright bye.
Austin Baldwin has worked at the U.S. Geological Survey for 18 years and is currently a Research Hydrologist with the USGS Idaho Water Science Center in Boise, Idaho. Austin's research focuses on field-based studies of contaminants in surface water and sediment, including organic compounds, mercury and other metals, and microplastics.
His work specifically focuses on (1) investigations into the sources, transport, and fate of contaminants, (2) processes driving contaminant partitioning among environmental compartments and transformation to more bioavailable forms, and (3) potential adverse effects of contaminants on ecosystem health. Through each of these research themes, he aims to inform management decisions to improve ecosystem health.
Dr. Yongli Wager is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Wayne State University. Her research focuses on water treatment and water quality that has been funded by NSF, EPA, NIEHS, DOE, Microsoft, Great Lakes Protection Fund, and Great Lakes Water Authority. Her group’s microplastic research includes understanding the fate and transport of microplastics in natural and engineered water systems, developing high throughput microplastics sensing technologies, developing data tools to identify sources and pathways of waste plastics entering into the environment, and conducting community outreach campaigns to reduce plastic pollution.
Julia manages the development and execution of CUAHSI’s education and outreach activities. Julia graduated from Boston University with a BA in Earth and Environmental Sciences. During her time at BU she completed research investigating the impact of Canada geese populations on Charles River water quality. Outside of work she enjoys trying out new recipes and spending time exploring outdoors.
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