GUEST SUBMISSION: In the realm of environmental management, few topics have garnered as much attention as the contamination of environments with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

These chemicals, ubiquitous in many industrial applications and consumer products, present significant challenges due to their persistence and potential health risks.

As members of the global environmental consulting and engineering services practice at Arcadis, one of our team’s most complex challenges is helping clients who manufacture or use PFAS proactively assess any potential historical releases of these chemicals into the environment. Part of this process often includes developing effective and feasible strategies and techniques to remediate or risk manage the problems that are detected.

At the same time, we’re very much focused on providing science- and evidence-based counsel and direction to the many government agencies and departments around the world that have been mandated with introducing and enforcing new regulations around the use of PFAS.

Several federal agencies and departments are actively investigating and remediating PFAS contamination at sites where PFAS source areas exist that have been identified as high-priority areas to clean up and manage.

In most cases, the source of PFAS on these sites originates from the use of Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF), a PFAS-laden product that has been used extensively by firefighters for combating fuel fires at airports and military bases in Canada and worldwide over the last several decades. Unfortunately, in many cases, the AFFF residues left behind have allowed PFAS to migrate into surrounding environmental media, including soil, groundwater and surface water resources.

AFFF: A persistent threat

AFFF has been a staple firefighting foam for decades due to its effectiveness in suppressing flammable liquid fires like gasoline, oil and jet fuel. However, its composition, which includes PFAS, has raised concerns about its long-lasting impact on the environment and human health, as PFAS have been linked to various adverse environmental and human health effects.

At Arcadis, we are actively involved in developing innovative solutions for assessing and remediating PFAS-contaminated sites at airports and military bases in Canada and globally, including pilot testing new technologies such as resin filtration, fractionation, sonolysis and supercritical water oxidation. These technologies show a great deal of promise in effectively removing PFAS from water.

Soil treatment options, such as soil stabilization and solidification techniques, which involve mixing soils, either in-place or after excavation, with commercially available stabilization agents like carbon or organo-clay and solidifying the treated soils with cement, have also been explored. This technique reduces the leachability of PFAS from the soils and the need to transport contaminated soil offsite.

Soil washing is another method used to reduce the volume of PFAS in soils before considering the expensive, time-consuming and carbon intensive process of digging up the soil and transporting it to a remote landfill or thermal treatment site.

While remediation efforts are essential, preventing future PFAS releases into the environment is equally important for protecting groundwater. Many Canadian airports and military bases are transitioning away from AFFF, but this process is complex and time-consuming. Simply replacing the foam with fluorine-free alternatives is not enough; PFAS residues often remain in firefighting systems and equipment long after the use of AFFFs has been ceased, so without proper and thorough cleaning, even PFAS-free replacement foams can potentially become contaminated with leftover residues from past PFAS use, thus continuing to pose potential environmental health risks.

At Arcadis, we have developed a cleaning process that removes PFAS residuals from firefighting systems before transitioning to environmentally benign fluorine-free foams. This process has already been successfully implemented at 250 facilities globally, including several sites in Canada. Many facilities will still need to take action, and the phase-out of PFAS-containing foams will likely take several years to complete.

These advancements in remediation technologies offer hope for addressing the legacy of PFAS contamination and in identifying effective prevention strategies for the future.

These technologies and techniques not only promise effective PFAS removal but also offer potential business opportunities to innovators in the environmental sciences who are able to address the rapidly growing demand for viable treatment technologies and PFAS alternatives.

In fact, it has been the realization of the harmful impacts of PFAS in AFFFs that has spurred the process chemical industry to develop fluorine-free alternatives, which are now gaining acceptance by firefighting organizations worldwide.

Future prevention strategies

Prevention is, of course, the key to mitigating any future risks associated with PFAS. In fact, we believe in the importance of responsible product stewardship and carefully crafted regulations to phase out PFAS from manufacturing processes and supply chains altogether. Likewise, many multinational manufacturing companies are increasingly seeking expert assistance to remove PFAS from their products and supply chains, demonstrating an important and growing commitment to sustainability on their part.

To address this need, we’ve developed a range of innovative tools — such as a search bot that companies can use to automatically scan thousands of safety data sheets for the presence of PFAS anywhere in their product catalogue — that enable companies to very quickly identify, isolate and address the presence of PFAS anywhere in their supply chain.

By raising awareness about the potential risks associated with PFAS and providing compliance support to companies across a wide range of industries, we believe environmental consultants are ideally positioned to help direct the scope and focus of regulatory changes that are meant to prevent further PFAS contaminations and protect environmental and human health.