Michelle Scire  |  Scientific Contributor

What Is 1,2,3 Trichloropropane And Where Does It Come From?

1,2,3 Trichloropropane (TCP) is a synthetic chemical that is commonly used as an industrial solvent, cleaning and degreasing agent, and paint and varnish remover.  In California’s Central Valley, widespread TCP contamination was caused by a now-banned fumigant DBCP, which was used to kill nematodes (small worms that live in the soil). When applied to the soil, TCP leaches from the deeper soil to groundwater. When DBCP was banned in 1977 by the EPA, it was commonly used on over 40 crops in California. Unfortunately, TCP is persistent in the environment, and as of November 2017, 395 of the 5863 wells used by public water supplies had levels of TCP that exceeded the California regulatory limit. When looking at a map of contaminated wells (above), you will see a strip right up the center of California from south of Bakersfield to Sacramento with some prominent outliers in Los Angeles, San Diego, Salinas, San Jose, San Francisco, and Chico counties. 

Why Do We Care About TCP?

TCP is some nasty stuff. In the short-term, high levels of inhalation exposure to TCP can cause irritation of eyes, respiratory tract and skin, and has the ability to depress the central nervous system. Moreover, studies in rodents have confirmed it may affect memory, focus and muscle coordination. Long term exposure studies have found exposure in rodents can lead to liver and kidney damage as well as reduced body weight and tumor growth. To get an idea of how toxic TCP is, the 5 part per trillion MCL (legal limit) is equivalent to a single drop of water being diluted into about 5.5 olympic sized swimming pools!.

Timeline of Public Knowledge Related To TCP Toxicity

Data from: HERE

What Took Regulation Of TCP So Long?

While it’d be great if regulatory bodies were able to act quickly, the reality is that regulations take time, often decades to execute. In the case of TCP specifically, Cindy Forbes, the deputy director for Californiawater board’s drinking water program, insists that TCP regulation was a “top priority,” but explained that they had limited resources preventing them from reaching“the finish line.” In California, the process to establish a maximum contaminant level (ie regulatory limit) includes: conducting their own peer-reviewed research, evaluating cost of detection and cleanup, as well as allowing public comment (which undoubtedly includes comments from companies responsible for contamination). Forbes claims, “It’s my priority, it’s the board’s priority,” but one has to wonder what the word priority means when there is scientific research going back 25 years explicitly showing the repercussions of this contaminant. There is only one carcinogen with a lower state public health goal for drinking water, and that is dioxin.

What Can Be Done To Treat Water That Has Been Contaminated With TCP?

Large Scale TCP Remediation Techniques

Because of the contamination primarily leaching into the ground water in California's Central Valley, ground water remediation methods have been established. TCP can be removed with traditional methods such as, “pump and treat granular activated carbon filters (GAC), in-situ oxidation, permeable reactive barriers (zero-valent zinc), dechlorination by hydrogen-releasing compounds, and emerging biodegradation techniques.” A new method was developed recently using, “in-line, pressurized advanced oxidation process (HiPOx) that has the ability to remove TCP from groundwater to below 0.005 μg/L.” The treatment techniquewill depend on the level of contamination in groundwater or soil being treated. While these methods are indeed effective, they are expensive and require long planning/execution periods.

Small Scale (Residential) TCP Removal of TCP

If your home’s water is contaminated with TCP, and large-scale treatment isn’t happening in an acceptable time frame, some residential water filters do remove TCP. Our advice is to find a water filter that is advertised to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and ask the manufacturer for a data sheet that shows effective removal of TCP specifically. 

If you have any more questions about 1,2,3 Trichloropropane contamination, we encourage you to reach out to our “Help No Matter What” technical support through live chat or email (hello@hydroviv.com). Our Water Nerds are happy to answer any questions you may have!

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Analies Dyjak | Policy Analyst

In last weeks blog post, we discussed what a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit should look like. This article discusses the major problems with the 2015 Chemours-Fayetteville NPDES permit issued by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality

History Of PFAS Discharge By Dupont/Chemours

In 2015, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality issued a renewal NPDES permit to the Chemours Dupont manufacturing plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Prior to the media spotlight of GenX in the Cape Fear River in the summer of 2017, Chemours (and Dupont) had been receiving permit renewals since the plant was built in the 1970’s. This particular Chemours plant had been illegally discharging PFAS compounds for years. Similar compounds were not listed or identified in the NPDES permit, which immediately raised a red flag. Our team has taken the time to analyze each section of this 2015 NPDES permit renewal.

Problems With The 2015 Chemours Renewal Permit

Units:

First off, there are no units next to the values in the table. The 2015 NPDES permit almost completely lacked uniformity among units. The reader needs to clearly identify if allowable discharge is in mg/kg/day (parts per million), ug/kg/day (parts per billion), and so on. However, Chemours Dupont used “pounds per day” which isn’t constant with the EPA's normal standards of mg/kg/day or ppm. As we discussed in the overview of NPDES permit article, when a permitting agency fails to include units/dosage, they are allowing chemical discharge at any concentration, so long as the total mass does not exceed the stated value. In doing so, they opened up the door for the permit holder to coordinate discharge schedules with their sampling. More on this below.

Sampling:

The second issue is sampling. Chemours mainly used a grab sampling technique to test the surrounding Cape Fear water quality. Grab sampling is a daily one-time collection of water at any given location. This means that Chemours was able to determine the location and time for collecting a sample. As you can probably infer, this would allow Chemours to collect their daily grab sample as far away from the point of discharge as possible. Additionally, this sampling method allows Chemours to collect samples at a time when operation was halted or during a low-discharge period. Either of these sampling tricks could skew concentration levels and water quality being sent to the EPA.

No Plan To Reduce Discharge:

Finally, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System was created to help reduce pollution in US waterways. Permitting agencies should include a plan on how they’re working to reduce chemical discharge in their NPDES permit.

Summary

The Chemours NPDES permit is one of many inadequate documents distributed by state governments. Although it’s easy to blame the permitting agency, it’s really the fault of the federal government for not supplying an improved uniform template. Federal and state governments should demand more stringent practices from polluters in terms of allowable limits, uniformity in terms of units, and consistent, thorough, sampling techniques.

Although this particular permit seems is inadequate, there are hundreds of active permits in the US that are much worse. In future articles, we'll be shining some light onto these permits as well.

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Analies Dyjak, Hydroviv Policy Analyst. 

This past Thursday, January 25th, H2GO and a local news agency hosted an informative meeting to update the public on the GenX crisis that’s unfolding in Brunswick County, North Carolina. The forum consisted of 3 scientists, 2 representatives from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ), local utility providers, and a packed audience of concerned citizens. The mission of the meeting was to communicate to residents any recent actions and discoveries in this public health debacle.

Meeting Topic: Growing Concern About Other PFASs

The public forum made it clear that the scientists and Brunswick County residents are becoming more and more concerned with other perfluroalkyl and polyfluroalkyl subscances (PFASs) that are also present in the Cape Fear River. The scientists concluded that they know even less about these contaminants, which is troubling considering how little is known about GenX.

Our Take: While the presence of other PFASs are new to the nationwide press, they are not new to the scientific community. Dr. Knappe's work has been going on for quite some time, and is highly-respected by the environmental science community (including our science team). It's likely that GenX captured more attention than many other chemicals because it has an ominous (but easy to pronounce) nickname. 

Meeting Topic: Comments From State Regulatory Agencies

A representative from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) shared the three requests made by the Governor to the Environmental Protection Agency; expedite water quality data on GenX, expedite the risk assessment so that national and state standards could be set, and review the consent order under the Toxic Substance Control Act. 

Our Take On This: This feels a bit like grandstanding, becasue there are thousands of unregulated contaminants that are currently “in review” by the EPA, and the Clean Water Act only allows a MAXIMUM of 30 unregulated contaminants to be monitored in drinking water every 5 year period. The timescales for progress in these types of things are measured in decades, not months. For reference, chromium 6, whose toxicity and occurrence in US drinking water systems has been established for decades, is still not regulated. This is despite being the fact that it was made famous by the Erin Brockovich Movie (released in 2000). 

What Is Hydroviv Doing To Help Remediate Perfluorinated Compounds (Including GenX) In Drinking Water?

As a company, we're not really in a position to push for long-term regulatory changes, but we have heavily invested in a rapid R&D program to develop an under sink water filtration system that is optimized for GenX removal. Unlike reverse osmosis filters, our system does not require the user to drill a hole in their drain pipe or countertop, so our water filters can be used by homeowners and renters alike. 

Of course, our Water Nerds are also standing by to answer questions about GenX, PFASs, regulatory policy.... even if you have no intention of purchasing one of our filters. Open a chat line on our homepage with one of our Water Nerds or send us an email at hello@hydroviv.com.

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GexX Update From January 25 Town Hall Meeting With H2GO 

Stephanie Angione, Ph.D. | Scientific Contributor

Pesticides are chemicals used to kill environmental pests including insects, weeds, fungi and rodents. This article focuses on organophosphate pesticides, which are one type of pesticide used today. If you're looking for a more general overview on pesticides, you can view it here.

History Of Organophosphate Pesticides

Organophosphate pesticides largely replaced DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons in the 1960s and 1970s, including the compounds malathion, parathion, and diazinon. These compounds were originally favored over DDT since they break down much more rapidly in the environment, and do not present the problem of persistent pollution like their predecessors. That said, the degradation products of organophosphate pesticides can also be toxic. The EPA has thus banned the residential use of organophosphates, but they are still widely used in agricultural applications and for mosquito abatement. Organophosphate pesticides account for approximately 30-40% of all insecticides used in the US. Despite their widespread use and toxicity, organophosphate pesticides break down in the environment rapidly, and are thus rarely found as contaminates in groundwater as the intact chemical.

Health Effects Of Organophsphate Pesticide Exposure

The health effects of organophosphate pesticides in humans differ based on acute or chronic exposure, as well as the exposure amount. Since organophosphates inhibit the action of acetylcholinesterase, acetylcholine builds up in the nerves, and overstimulation of the central nervous system results in widespread effects including headache, seizures, depression of respiration and circulation, tremors and potentially coma. Victims of acute organophosphate poisoning typically die because they can’t breathe. Effects of chronic organophosphate pesticide poisoning are similar and include confusion, memory loss, depression, disorientation, weakness, headache, nausea and vomiting. While still inconclusive, there is evidence that organophosphate exposure causes several types of cancer, including lymphoma and leukemia.

How Do I Remove Pesticides From Drinking Water?

Water filtration systems that use activated carbon as part of the filtration media blend or reverse osmosis can be effective in removing pesticides from water. Contrary to what some people tell you, boiling/freezing water does NOT remove pesticides from drinking water!

Do You Have More Questions About Organophosphate Pesticides In Drinking Water?

Hydroviv makes it our business to help you better understand your water. As always, feel free to take advantage of our “help no matter what” approach to technical support! Our water nerds will work to answer your questions and provide organophosphate pesticide info, even if you have no intention of purchasing one of our water filters. Reach out by dropping us an email (hello@hydroviv.com) or through our live chat. You can also find us on Twitter or Facebook!

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