Safeguarding Our Water
UMass Amherst has long been on the forefront of developing technologies that can identify and remediate problems in drinking water and make water treatment more energy efficient.
When Massachusetts wanted to learn the levels of potentially dangerous PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in private water wells across the Commonwealth, it turned to the research group led by David Reckhow, emeritus professor of civil and environmental engineering.
The UMass team facilitated sampling of private water wells in nearly a quarter of Massachusetts cities and towns and found private wells in 21 communities with PFAS6 (the six MassDEP-regulated PFAS) levels exceeding the state’s public drinking water standard. As the 2022 report from the Massachusetts interagency PFAS task force stated: “The extent of PFAS contamination is vast, and the time to act is now.”
Although mitigating PFAS contamination will be an enormous challenge, looking back on his decades of experience with water quality and testing, Reckhow believes that the problem will be solved in time with hard work, transparency, and cooperation. He has also extensively researched the use of ozone in water treatment and has tested ferrate, an ion of iron, as a replacement for several water treatment steps.
Both Reckhow and John Tobiason, professor of civil and environmental engineering, arrived at UMass in the mid-1980s as pioneers in the field of drinking water treatment. Their efforts helped shape the college’s Environmental and Water Resource Engineering Program, including developing key research strengths that address clean water access.
Tobiason, alongside CEE assistant professor Emily Kumpel and graduate student Liam Amery, is currently investigating the presence of lead in drinking water in Massachusetts schools. Childhood lead exposure can cause brain and nervous system damage as well as issues across growth, development, learning, behavior, hearing, and speech.
The research team published a study in the American Water Works Association’s Water Science in which they determined factors to identify which schools are at the greatest risk for elevated lead levels, finding that the most telling characteristic was building age. Facilities built in the 1960s and 1970s— nearly a third of the facilities tested—were at the greatest risk for having dangerously high levels.
The study’s data came from the Assistance Program for Lead in School Drinking Water, a Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) and UMass Amherst water monitoring collaboration that began in 2016.
According to Tobiason, who leads the UMass work in support of the MassDEP initiative, “This publicly available large data set has been used for previous studies as well, and provides a basis for facilities to take action to protect children’s health.”
With 60% of Massachusetts schools reporting water samples as of last year, Kumpel echoes Tobiason’s sentiment about how this research can keep kids safe: “That was what we were trying to get at with this model: of those that haven’t yet tested, can we prioritize the places that we might need to look at the most? Using these factors, can we then predict where we should make sure to follow up?”