The toxicity and environmental persistence of anthropogenic per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are of global concern. To address legacy PFAS concerns in the United States, industry developed numerous replacement PFAS that commonly are treated as confidential information. To investigate the distribution of PFAS in New Jersey, soils collected from across the state were subjected to nontargeted mass-spectral analyses. Ten chloroperfluoropolyether carboxylates were tentatively identified, with at least three congeners in all samples. Nine congeners are ≥(CF2)7. Distinct chemical formulas and structures, as well as geographic distribution, suggest airborne transport from an industrial source. Lighter congeners dispersed more widely than heavier congeners, with the most widely dispersed detected in an in-stock New Hampshire sample. Additional data were used to develop a legacy-PFAS fingerprint for historical PFAS sources in New Jersey.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances
(PFAS) make up a widespread,
environmentally persistent class of anthropogenic chemicals that are
widely used in industrial and consumer products and frequently detected
in environmental media. Concerns over potential human health impacts
from long-term exposure to legacy PFAS (long-chain perfluoroalkyl
acids) resulted in the use of PFAS with alternative structures. Nontargeted
environmental monitoring has been crucial in identifying the existence
and transport of emerging PFAS in environmental media. Previous work
in an industrially impacted region of southwestern New Jersey has
shown consistently elevated levels of legacy PFAS, motivating additional
examination by nontargeted mass spectrometry to identify emerging
PFAS contamination. This study applied nontargeted analysis to water
samples collected in Gloucester and Salem counties in southwestern
New Jersey, revealing the existence of a series of chloro-perfluoro-polyether
carboxylates and related PFAS species, believed to originate from
a regional, industrial PFAS user. There is sparse publicly available
toxicity information for the emerging chemical species, but estimated
concentrations exceeded the state drinking water standards for perfluorooctanoic
acid and perfluorononanoic acid. Nontargeted analysis was used to
estimate the effectiveness of point-of-entry water treatment systems
for removal of the emerging species and reduced the abundance of PFAS
by >90%.
It is important that indicators of fecal pollution are reliable. Coliform bacteria are a commonly used indicator of fecal pollution. As other investigators have reported elsewhere, we observed a seasonal pattern of coliform bacteria detections in domestic wells in New Jersey. Examination of a statewide database of 10 years of water quality data from 93,447 samples, from 78,207 wells, generated during real estate transactions, revealed that coliform bacteria were detected in a higher proportion of wells during warm weather months. Further examination of the seasonal pattern of other data, including well water pH, precipitation, ground and surface water temperatures, surface water coliform bacteria concentrations, and vegetation, resulted in the hypothesis that these bacteria may be derived from nonfecal (or environmentally adapted) as well as fecal sources. We provide evidence that the coliform seasonality may be the result of seasonal changes in groundwater extraction volumes (and to a lesser extent precipitation), and temperature‐driven changes in the concentration of surface or near‐surface coliform sources. Nonfecal coliform sources may not indicate the presence of fecal wastes and hence the potential presence of pathogens, or do so in an inconsistent fashion. Additional research is needed to identify the sources of the coliforms detected in groundwater.
Although next-generation per- and
polyfluorinated substances (PFAS)
were designed and implemented as safer and environmentally degradable
alternatives to “forever” legacy PFAS, there is little
evidence to support the actual transformation of these compounds and
less evidence of the safety of transformed products in the environment.
Multiple congeners of one such PFAS alternative, the chloro-perfluoropolyether
carboxylates (Cl-PFPECAs), have been found in New Jersey soils surrounding
a manufacturing facility. These compounds are ideal candidates for
investigating environmental transformation due to the existence of
potential reaction centers including a chlorinated carbon and ether
linkages. Transformation products of the chemical structures of this
class of compounds were predicted based on analogous PFAS transformation
pathways documented in peer-reviewed literature. Potential reaction
products were used as the basis for high-resolution mass-spectrometric
suspect screening of the soils. Suspected transformation products
of multiple congeners, the Cl-PFPECAs, including H-PFPECAs, epox-PFPECAs,
and diOH-PFPECAs, were tentatively observed in these screenings. Although
ether linkages have been hypothesized as potential reaction centers
under environmental conditions, to date, no documentation of ether
scission has been identified. Despite exhaustive scrutiny of the high-resolution
data for our Cl-PFPECA-laden soils, we found no evidence of ether
scission.
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