At a cost of $100 Million, Beaufort-Jasper water eyes 2029 deadline to reduce chemicals
2029 seems like a long way off but when a $100 million project is on the horizon it pays to start early.
The Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority is working to meet a 2029 deadline established by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit the amount of “forever chemicals” in its drinking water.
At this point, BJWSA is working to test and evaluate different technologies. The water company is fully committed to meeting the new regulations from the EPA, Jeff La Rue, chief communications officer with BJWSA, said.
The quantity of these compounds in Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority’s water supply are high enough that they will need to install a large filtration system to the tune of $100 million dollars.
What are PFAS?
Companies such as 3M and DuPont started manufacturing different types of PFAS in the late 1940s. They were originally used to make Teflon. These compounds can repel oil, water and heat, so companies started putting them in fire-fighting foam to clothing, cosmetics, food packaging, clothing and many more products. But the strong chemical bonds in the compounds are very difficult to break down, meaning they persist in the environment for very long periods of time.
Researchers have linked PFAS to a number of health problems, such as fertility issues, developmental delays and certain types of cancer. Today, research indicates that at least one kind of PFAS is present in 45 percent of the nation’s drinking water.
In April 2024, the EPA established regulations to limit the amount of PFAS in drinking water. There are 12,000 types of PFAS, but only six are the subject of the new rule.
Before joining BJWSA, Michael Hansen, the now chief of engineering at the authority, had learned about PFAS while working in private consulting.
“PFAS has been a buzz word for the last decade or more,” Hansen said.
BJWSA started intermittent PFAS testing in 2013 and increased to monthly testing in 2023. For the past two years, the six types of PFAS compounds they tested have fluctuated between 2.9 and 11 parts per trillion, or ppt. The new limit established by the EPA is 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, and 10 parts per trillion for four other compounds in the family.
The latest test results from Jan. 2025 found that PFOS and PFOA were between 4.1 and 4.9 ppt in the Savannah River and the company’s two water treatment plants. PFOS and PFOA need to be below 4 ppt by the 2029 deadline. One part per trillion is a very small amount, meaning one unit of chemical for one trillion units of water.
“It’s a very significant difference for us because we’re at that 4.55 number. So it’s the difference between needing to spend $100 million or not,” La Rue said.
The Savannah River is the water source for the BJWSA. The exact point source for PFAS in the river is unclear, but the compounds could make their water into the water supply from anywhere.
La Rue said that the water industry knew there were regulations coming down the pipeline, but no one knew what the exact limits would be until the EPA press conference in April 2024.
“We were anxiously awaiting,” La Rue said. “Just a week before the press conference, we thought the collective regulation was going to be significantly higher than the 4 ppt.”
If the regulation was closer to 10 ppt for PFOS and PFOA, the authority wouldn’t have needed to take action to limit the amount of PFAS in their water.
Under the new rules, water authorities need to begin monitoring for the PFAS compounds by 2027, which BJWSA has already started doing. By 2029, any water authorities that test above these limits will need to execute a solution for removing the compounds from their water supply. If they fail to meet these requirements, they must take action to reduce levels of the regulated PFAS in the water and notify the public of their violation.
BJWSA is committed to meeting the EPA’s 2029 deadline, La Rue said. North of Beaufort County, the Charleston Water System has pushed back against the limits. Their PFAS levels are similar to BJWSA, but Charleston Water System says the unfunded mandate will necessitate rising water rates without providing any tangible benefits.
The Hilton Head Public Service District, which provides water to parts of Hilton Head Island, hasn’t detected any PFAS in its wells, Pete Nardi, the general manager said. They do buy water from the BJWSA.
Filter options being evaluated
The BJSWA is currently testing options for a filtration system that would remove the PFAS from the drinking water. They’re working with a consultant engineer to pilot test two types of carbon removal processes.
Carbon removal technologies are a common method for PFAS removal. The technology has been used in the water industry to solve other issues related to taste, odor and color of drinking water for years, Hansen said.
Hansen and other employees of BJWSA recently took a trip to two other water companies in Ohio and Kentucky to learn more about the carbon removal technology they installed years ago.
“They had a lot of good feedback on things that they wish they would have done.” Hansen said. “We can learn from that and hopefully not make the same mistakes and use their lessons learned.”
Ultimately, the new activated carbon technology will need a separate building at the water treatment plant to house the filters. Anyone looking at the filters when they’re installed will see what looks like a swimming pool, and instead of a flat bottom there will be pipes filled with filter material that the water moves through, La Rue said. The carbon in the filter will act like a sponge, and soak up all the PFAS.
This filter material isn’t permanent and it will need to be replaced. While the initial installation cost will be somewhere around $100 million, it will cost about $3 million every year for the upkeep of the system. BJSWA will need to dispose of the old filter material and buy the new parts to replace it. The used filters will contain PFAS, which calls for special disposal methods.
“Then we’ve got toxic waste, but toxic waste costs more to landfill than household garbage,” La Rue said.
Within the next few months, Hansen said they hope to be done with pilot testing and move into designing the system with a contractor. By late 2026, BJWSA hopes to start construction so they have time to complete the necessary baseline testing before the 2029 deadline.
“I think we’ve done a very good job of planning,” Hansen said. “We’ve done a very good job of trying to find funding avenues.”
BJWSA applied for and received a state revolving fund loan, which is supporting the pilot testing work. They could get up to $6 million forgiven for that part of the project. But the rest of the money for construction of the new carbon removal technology will hopefully come from a class action lawsuit the water company filed last April.
The lawsuit alleges that the three defendants, 3M, DuPont and Corteva, are responsible for the PFAS in the company’s water supply. Should BJWSA prevail, that money will go towards the $100 million cost of constructing the new filtration system.
If there are other grants available to offset the cost of the new water treatment technology, La Rue said BJSWA would apply. That pool of money is small and there are many water companies in the country that would compete for the funding. The last option is raising water rates to pay for the new technology.
