T255 Fate and Transport of PFAS in the Geologic Landscape

Friday, 30 October 2020
10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Meeting Rooms

ONE-DIMENSIONAL SOLUTE TRANSPORT MODELLING REVISITED: AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO BROADLY CHARACTERIZE PFAS TRANSPORT THROUGH SOILS TO THE WATER-TABLE

Paper number: T255-8
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 11:45 AM – 12:00 PM

Authors

Abstract

Atmospheric emissions of per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from industrial discharge stacks have contaminated soils and groundwater downwind at plants where Teflon™ coated products were manufactured or used. Governmental regulatory bodies need to know how long it took PFAS to initially reach the water table beneath contaminated soils once contamination began. We show using data from the well-documented Dupont Washington Works PFAS contamination in West Virginia/Ohio that the Rao et al. (1985)1 one dimensional estimation calculation originally developed for pesticides can effectively be used to estimate whether it is more likely than not for atmospherically deposited PFAS to reach the water table within days, weeks, months, years, or tens of years for major soil classes. The Rao approach coupled to analytical solutions for the differential equations governing dilution from precipitation also serves as a first approximation estimate of PFAS concentrations in ground water with reasonable certainty during and following PFAS emissions

1Rao, P.S.C., Hornsby, A.G. and Jesup, R.E., 1985. Indices for ranking the potential for pesticide contamination of groundwater. In Proceedings Soil and Crop Science Society of Florida.p.1-8.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 52, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2020AM-352150

© Copyright 2020 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.