Jason Conder, PhD, IBERAD, (California) and Rachel Zajac-Fay (Florida) of Geosyntec and Brent Pautler, PhD, (Ontario) of SiREM were awarded funding by the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) to demonstrate using the PFASsive sampler to measure per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in sediment.

The project is one of 50 that will begin in fiscal year 2023 and one of eight in the category of Environmental Restoration. This 3-year project will involve field demonstration of the samplers at two different Department of Defense (DoD) sites: one freshwater and one saltwater. Jason will be the lead principal investigator, and Rachel and Brent will be co-principal investigators. Naval Information Warfare Center employees Gunther Rosen and Nicolas Hayman will also be co-principal investigators.

Jason is a Principal Scientist with more than 15 years of experience focused on risk assessment and contaminated sediments with an emphasis on contaminated site assessment and management, environmental toxicology, and ecological and human health risk assessment.

Rachel is an Environmental Scientist with more than 13 years of experience on hazardous waste site characterization and remediation projects and ecological risk assessment. She has conducted numerous projects under the CERCLA and RCRA programs at a variety of commercial and federal facilities.

Brent is the Chemistry Services Manager at SiREM and an environmental analytical chemist with advanced technical experience in passive sampling, spectroscopy, chromatography, mass spectrometry, and chemistry informatics. He manages SiREM’s passive sampling portfolio.

Established in 1995, ESTCP is the United States Department of Defense’s environmental technology demonstration and validation program. ESTCP promotes the transfer of innovative technologies that have successfully established proof of concept to field or production use.

Abstract:

The ESTCP Fiscal Year 2023 Call for Proposals Topic B3, Long Term Management of Contaminated Aquatic Sediments seeks out demonstration projects for innovative technologies that specifically address the management, risk characterization, remediation, or monitoring of sediments impacted by PFAS, specifically projects that demonstrate the application and commercialization of passive samplers. PFAS are a concern at many DoD installations due to the use of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) containing PFAS. This historical use of AFFF has resulted in the release of PFAS into aquatic systems, and both sediment and surface water at many DoD installations contain detectable levels of PFAS. Sediment can represent a significant source of PFAS to aquatic life, aquatic dependent wildlife, and human receptors, and there is a critical need to understand the fate and bioavailability of PFAS in sediment for site-specific risk assessments.

The proposed work responds to these objectives through a project to demonstrate and validate a commercially available PFAS passive sampler (PFASsive from SiREM) in sediment and surface water by 1) demonstrating an in situ field deployment in sediments and water; and 2) validating the ability of in situ passive sampler freely dissolved concentration measurements to relate to bioavailability (concentrations in aquatic biota). These demonstration and validation results will be disseminated to potential end users within the DoD, analytical laboratories, regulators, and consultants to inform the use of passive sampling technology in site-specific PFAS investigations of fate and risk.

PFASsive is a dialysis sampler, a type of passive sampler that functions by allowing a small water compartment to chemically equilibrate with sediment porewater via passive diffusion through a semipermeable membrane. Traditional chemical analysis methods in sediment are widely recognized to overestimate bioavailability and risk. In contrast, passive sampling has been shown to be a powerful tool in providing measurements of the freely dissolved concentration that can be used to improve site-specific investigations of fate and risk. Passive sampling is a widely recognized technique for understanding the availability of sediment contaminants; however, there is limited commercial availability of passive samplers for PFAS. We expect that this project will have a high return of investment to DoD by demonstrating and validating a PFAS passive sampler that is robust, simple, familiar to the end user and regulatory communities, and currently commercially available.

Learn More

About ESTCP: https://www.serdp-estcp.org/About-SERDP-and-ESTCP
For consultation about remediation of PFAS, contact Jason at JConder@Geosyntec.com, Rachel at RZajacFay@Geosyntec.com, or Brent at BPautler@siremlab.com.
Learn more about Jason: Jason Conder (geosyntec.com)
Learn more about Rachel: Rachel Zajac-Fay | LinkedIn
Learn more about Brent: Meet the Team – SiREM (siremlab.com)