PFAS has garnered increasing public attention in recent years. Even at low exposure levels, PFAS in drinking water put human health at risk. The chemicals are associated with infertility, reproductive cancers, hormone issues, vaccine immunity problems and kidney cancer. After the landfill in Coventry, run by Casella Waste Systems, started sending leachate to Montpelier in 2020, the fluid coming out of the capital city’s treatment plant contained “significantly higher” concentrations of PFAS than all but one facility tested in Vermont, the state said that year. No nearby treatment plant has had the technology to remove the chemicals.
Montpelier might have a solution with a new venture by Casella. The state issued the company a permit last December to develop a framework for a pilot system at the landfill that could reduce the amount of PFAS in leachate. By the end of this year, the company is required to have the new technology running and begin studying its effectiveness. The company has been working on the pilot system but is waiting on two additional permits before all the work needed can happen, including one crucial permit approving Casella’s design for the system.
If both permits are approved, company leaders expect to start studying their system later this year, a process slated to end in 2024, said Samuel Nicolai, the company’s vice president of compliance and engineering, who oversees much of the project. The project would be one of the first on-site PFAS treatment systems at a landfill in the country. If it is a success, the build could be a model for other landfills that, as public alarm surrounding the chemicals intensifies, look to limit PFAS in leachate.