The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency recognizes three options for removal of PFAS from drinking water: granular activated carbon (GAC), ion exchange (IX), and reverse osmosis (RO). In 2023-2024, the Village contracted with an engineering firm to evaluate all three options and the engineer recommended GAC as the best solution for our system. The primary drawback of RO systems is the large volume of wastewater created in the process. Industrial-grade reverse osmosis systems typically reject 1 – 2 gallons of water per 10 gallons purified, achieving 80-90% efficiency. This is water pumped from our wells into the RO system but discharged as unusable. Given IHWW’s range of daily production between 1.5 million gallons to 5 million gallons per day, this could be 150,000 gallons to 1 million gallons of water pumped out of the aquifer and rejected per day. Due to aquifer conditions and having no available sanitary sewer system near the water treatment plant, this was not a viable option.
Indian Hill has also worked with a group currently funded by USEPA Research and Development on a process known as Foam Fractionation. This technology is still being evaluated as a potential method for PFAS removal; however, it is not currently recognized as an approved method by the Ohio EPA. The USEPA at this time has a broader acceptance of technologies in regard to PFAS removal.