Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2009MN253B

Urban Stormwater Inputs of Perfluorochemicals

Institute: Minnesota
Year Established: 2009 Start Date: 2009-03-01 End Date: 2011-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $50,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $81,292

Principal Investigators: Matt Simcik

Project Summary: Perfluorochemicals (PFCs) have been used in a variety of industrial polymers and commercial products from Teflon to Scotchgard. Despite the phase-out of these chemicals from production, they continue to cause environmental and human health concern. In 2007, several Twin Cities metropolitan lakes were labeled impaired for contamination with a suite of perfluorochemicals, primarily perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in fish. While Minnesota is home to the 3M corporation that produced and disposed of many of these chemicals, many of the lakes listed as impaired have no connection to 3M's production or disposal. Because many of these PFCs were used in commercial products, wastewater is another potential source to surface waters, however, none of these lakes receives direct wastewater discharge. We hypothesize that a significant source of PFCs to surface waters is urban stormwater, which receives PFCs from commercial/industrial/residential sourcs within its watershed. Therefore, we propose to sample temporal composites of urban stormwater integrated over storm events and analyze them for a suite of PFCs. These PFC concentrations will then be combined with detailed land-use information for the watershed to model the source apportionment of PFCs to urban stormwater. The objectives of this study are to: 1. quantify the magnitude of PFCs loadings from urban stormwater; 2. identify unique land-use characteristics that lead to PFC contamination; and 3. determine the efficacy of suspended sediment removal as a technique for removing PFCs from stormwater.