Speaker 1: Welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcasts hosted by Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 1: the investment research arm of Bloomberg LP. In this podcast series,
Speaker 1: we talk about the intersection of business policy and law.
Speaker 1: My name is Holly from I'm an analyst with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Intelligence covering consumer and industrials litigation. Today's podcast we'll focus
Speaker 1: on regulatory and other issues related to p fast chemicals
Speaker 1: or what are also called forever chemicals. I'm delighted to
Speaker 1: be joined today by Scott Wilson, President and CEO of regenafis,
Speaker 1: a global leader in environmental technology. Scott has devoted a
Speaker 1: significant amount of time to p fast for mediation. So Scott,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. Can you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about your background and what ReGenesis does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thanks thanks for having me, Hollie. I appreciate it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just by way of background, I've been in the environmental
Speaker 2: remediation industry since really the birth of the industry itself
Speaker 2: back in the eighties. I have an undergraduate degree in
Speaker 2: biology and a master's degree in applied microbiology as it
Speaker 2: relates to chemical as it relates to patrolling engineering in
Speaker 2: geochemistry type of things. We were injecting bacteria into oil
Speaker 2: reservoirs and trying to clean up certain fractions of oil
Speaker 2: with bacteria back in the day. And I then moved
Speaker 2: into the environmental industry and was with one of the
Speaker 2: first groundwater treatment firms, in fact, the first public company
Speaker 2: treating groundwater that was groundwater technology back in the day.
Speaker 2: And then then I went back to school and got
Speaker 2: an NBA from Kellogg and then have been with ReGenesis
Speaker 2: for now twenty five years or so. So that's a
Speaker 2: bit of my background.
Speaker 1: And what does re Genesis do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we are a company that's dead ded catered
Speaker 2: to developing sort of the leading edge environmental technologies to
Speaker 2: restore groundwater and soil that's been contaminated. Uh. And so
Speaker 2: what we do is we develop chemical and biological type
Speaker 2: technologies that are used by engineering firms all around the
Speaker 2: world to restore polluted land and contaminate the land. So
Speaker 2: we have we have a pretty broad understanding of the
Speaker 2: global problems that are that are confronting us with the
Speaker 2: use of different chemicals in our everyday lives that get
Speaker 2: into the media that we breathe and that we that
Speaker 2: we you know, eat and drink, and that sort of thing. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's what we do, got it?
Speaker 1: And I understand that a significant amount of your intention
Speaker 1: has been devoted to p FAST. For those who don't know,
Speaker 1: can you explain what p fats are and why they
Speaker 1: are a contenant of concern?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So p FAT stands for poly or perfluorinated alcohol substances,
Speaker 2: And really what that means is that it's a nomenclature
Speaker 2: for a broad range of chemicals that are all related.
Speaker 2: Uh and and they're chains of carbon atoms ranging from
Speaker 2: a couple carbons long to eight or nine carbons long.
Speaker 2: And these these molecules have one if you consider a
Speaker 2: chain of carbon on one end, there's a what's known
Speaker 2: as a water loving group or a hydrophilic group that
Speaker 2: tends to pull the molecule into water. The other end,
Speaker 2: I should say that the rest of the chain has
Speaker 2: fluorine atoms all over it, and and that that that
Speaker 2: end of the molecule really doesn't like water at all,
Speaker 2: so it tends to stay more on the surface of
Speaker 2: of of materials and or into into oil or for fats. So,
Speaker 2: so what you have is that these molecules, there's' be
Speaker 2: like five thousand different variations of these. But but they
Speaker 2: have really unique characteristics, much like soaps, if you want
Speaker 2: to look at it that way. They will tend to
Speaker 2: move in water somewhat depending on the length of the molecule.
Speaker 2: The more the more long, the longer the chain of carbons,
Speaker 2: the more it does not want to be in the water.
Speaker 2: But but what happens is that is that these molecules
Speaker 2: will tend to aggregate the surface of water and air
Speaker 2: and they make bubbles. Uh And and as a result,
Speaker 2: they've been used in products such as aqueous film forming foams,
Speaker 2: which are firefighting foams. So you see, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: on on airports and so forth, you see these foam
Speaker 2: that they spray down on the on the runway. That's
Speaker 2: often what's known as a triple F or firefighting foam
Speaker 2: that's made with p fast molecules. And and it turns
Speaker 2: out that that the way, the way this whole thing
Speaker 2: started was when when these were invented, they realized that
Speaker 2: it changed the surface of materials that were sprayed with
Speaker 2: these compounds. For instance, you could you could spray, you know,
Speaker 2: put it on a frying pan and it would make
Speaker 2: it nonstick. You could put it into clothes and and
Speaker 2: and water wouldn't penetrate it, but but air could breathe
Speaker 2: through it. So we these molecules have found there their
Speaker 2: their way into all sorts of products in our daily lives.
Speaker 2: The non stick little cupcake holders often had pea fastened,
Speaker 2: and the little the little paper paper doily things put
Speaker 2: around cupcakes, for instance. So I mean there is in
Speaker 2: all sorts of materials, but probably the most insidious area
Speaker 2: that we see it is in the firefighting foams. And
Speaker 2: the reason for that is the firefighting foams were formulated
Speaker 2: with the longer chain pa fasts, the eight or the
Speaker 2: eight carbon long type molecules, and those tend to not
Speaker 2: want to be in well. They tend to want to
Speaker 2: accumulate in oil and in fat molecules. So if you
Speaker 2: drink those like let's say that some of that firefighting
Speaker 2: foam gets into groundwater and then it gets into well
Speaker 2: and you recover that for drinking. Even a very small
Speaker 2: amount of that going into your body over time will
Speaker 2: be detrimental simply because it's building up in your body.
Speaker 2: It's what's known as bioaccumulation. The long chain, the long
Speaker 2: carbon chain surrounded with fluorine tends to accumulate in the
Speaker 2: fat cells of the fat and the cells in your body,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't go out with your urine, So your
Speaker 2: body accumulates it over time, and when we get larger,
Speaker 2: when we get these higher concentrations, as it builds up,
Speaker 2: it starts to have toxic and carcinogenic effects. So that's
Speaker 2: sort of a little bit of background on the types
Speaker 2: of molecules, where they're used, and the impact to human
Speaker 2: health and the environment. What happens the humans also happens
Speaker 2: to all sorts of life in streams and surface water bodies,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 3: You got it.
Speaker 1: And so what types of p fast impacted sites exist
Speaker 1: out there?
Speaker 2: Good question. So let's if you if you look at
Speaker 2: at at sites that are impacted with p fasts, probably
Speaker 2: the most clear and present danger is the drinking water sites. Right,
Speaker 2: So they they that's on one end of the problem.
Speaker 2: That's where it's being recovered and and we're you know,
Speaker 2: we're put potentially drinking it. So there's water drinking water sites.
Speaker 2: But if you look at if you look at where
Speaker 2: that p fass came from, it's impacting that drinking water site.
Speaker 2: It came from upgradients someplace, and that would be let's
Speaker 2: say an airport or a military base, an industrial facility,
Speaker 2: maybe a landfill. And what happens is, let's let's for
Speaker 2: an example, let's look at an airport, the fire training
Speaker 2: area where they were spraying these foams regularly to train.
Speaker 2: That's filled with some peafast and the soil there well.
Speaker 2: Then rain comes and drives it down into the subsurface
Speaker 2: soil down to a point where it impacts the groundwater table,
Speaker 2: which is a point in the subsurface where the soil
Speaker 2: is filled with water. It's saturated. Once it's down there,
Speaker 2: then it tends to move off site and down down
Speaker 2: gradient if you want to look at that weight. So
Speaker 2: those are what I call the source sites. Those source
Speaker 2: sites are the sites that need remediation. Certainly on the
Speaker 2: very downgradient where we're recovering it for drinking water, we'll
Speaker 2: have to treat that for drinking but also the sites
Speaker 2: that are causing the problem are the source sites. And
Speaker 2: to answer your question, Holly, those include airportsli terry bases,
Speaker 2: and industrial facilities. And those industrial facilities could range from
Speaker 2: manufacturing facilities for textiles that were coating with p facts
Speaker 2: to making dishware that was coated with teflon type substances,
Speaker 2: to landfills, to a whole range of different industries that
Speaker 2: have used this material in the past. Does that answer
Speaker 2: the question?
Speaker 1: Got it? Yep? And then with respect to those those
Speaker 1: types of sites, which ones have new remediated? What types
Speaker 1: of states have you remediated?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, so, to be honest with you, there isn't
Speaker 2: a whole lot of remediation going on yet. Most most
Speaker 2: of all the sites out there have just been in
Speaker 2: a study mode where they're trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: the extent of contamination is and where the where the
Speaker 2: groundwater beneath the site and moving off the site is
Speaker 2: actually impacted with pfasts. So that's what most of the
Speaker 2: work it has been done so far. However, there are
Speaker 2: some sites that have been remediated. We have we have
Speaker 2: actually treated about forty project sites or between forty and
Speaker 2: fifty project sites to date, and they've included everything from
Speaker 2: a small furniture manufacturing facility that was using p fas,
Speaker 2: to a major refinery that was having p fasts leave
Speaker 2: its facility into a river, to a superfund sites which
Speaker 2: was an old landfill that that was trying to go
Speaker 2: through a hazardous Waste Closure Action and they realized p
Speaker 2: FASc was on the site and so that us EPA
Speaker 2: has utilized our technology to restore that site as well.
Speaker 2: So a broad range of facilities.
Speaker 3: So when you say super fun, say, can you explain
Speaker 3: what that is?
Speaker 2: Ah? Yeah, So super fun means that it was a
Speaker 2: super fund is A is a nickname an acronym force
Speaker 2: for the CIRCLA UH a Circle of law UH and
Speaker 2: and UH. What what that does is is basically, the
Speaker 2: U s c p A has money available if a
Speaker 2: site is abandoned and and there's no responsible party stepping forward,
Speaker 2: they will actually utilize that money UH to to implement
Speaker 2: a remediation and clean up themselves. There's also UH sites
Speaker 2: that are named as a super Fund Project site by
Speaker 2: the U s c p A, whereby responsible parties will
Speaker 2: get together and they'll do the clean up themselves under
Speaker 2: the auspice or under the direction of the U s
Speaker 2: c p A, and they can be named as a
Speaker 2: super Fun site as well. Got it.
Speaker 3: P past hasn't been just need hazards planners since so
Speaker 3: if if if a substance that does any hazardous then
Speaker 3: under CIRCLA e p A can comment and try to
Speaker 3: try to force responsible parties to clean it up. But
Speaker 3: these substances have not yet been designated and hazardous, So
Speaker 3: why would they.
Speaker 1: Be remediating those or why would they even how would
Speaker 1: they even know that they need to be remediated to
Speaker 1: currently existing super fund sites.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, uh so, just just to be clear here,
Speaker 2: when we say CIRCLA, we mean the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Speaker 2: Compensation and Liability Act. It was think there was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was put in and that was an acted in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty and and and so under that under that act,
Speaker 2: they're under that act, the e p A has the
Speaker 2: right to designate certain compounds as hazardous substances. And when
Speaker 2: a substance named as a hazardous substance under CIRCLA, it
Speaker 2: means that that there has to that anyone having spilled
Speaker 2: that material has to under the National Contingency Plan, has
Speaker 2: to alert the U s c p A, and then
Speaker 2: has to to implement a cleanup. So that's that's really
Speaker 2: what that means. At at this point in time, the
Speaker 2: U s c p A has come forward and said, hey,
Speaker 2: we we put forward a roadmap on p fas Administer
Speaker 2: Reagan put together a roadmap that that that says that
Speaker 2: we will in fact designate this as a a hazardous
Speaker 2: substance under circlet. But it has not yet been done.
Speaker 2: That has not been that has not happened, and and
Speaker 2: the thought is it will happen early next year. However,
Speaker 2: states themselves have taken this, have taken the action to
Speaker 2: implement regulations and put in clean up levels for for
Speaker 2: for p fas, particularly p f O S and p
Speaker 2: fo A, which are two specific molecules within the PFAS family.
Speaker 2: So states have implemented clean up levels. However, federal facilities
Speaker 2: like military bases, FAA controlled airports, and so forth, are
Speaker 2: not obligated to clean up to those state levels, and
Speaker 2: they're waiting for federal guidance. So once the federal government
Speaker 2: that is, the e p A, implements this rule making
Speaker 2: and says, hey, we're going to make p facs a
Speaker 2: hazardous substance, these military bases in the FAA will have
Speaker 2: to comply.
Speaker 1: Got it. So it sounds like some are starting to already.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think there are people that are starting to
Speaker 2: get ahead of it. You know, most of the work
Speaker 2: that we have done the forty starts, we've cleaned up.
Speaker 2: There have been a couple that are that are federal. However,
Speaker 2: mostly at state level, the federal is still waiting for
Speaker 2: for the the other shoe to drop on the on
Speaker 2: the substance designation hazard substance. Got it.
Speaker 1: We've talked about, you know, other sites besides water authorities
Speaker 1: that may require remediation. Three and one of one of
Speaker 1: the manufacturers of PFASs reported at tentative, well, they just
Speaker 1: submitted a proposal to resolve through a class action water
Speaker 1: authority cases for lawsuits for remediation, reportedly for ten to
Speaker 1: twelve point five billion dollars, and that would resolve p
Speaker 1: FAST claims related to costs to drink drinking water to
Speaker 1: treat drinking water. Do you have any idea of how
Speaker 1: many of the other sites, the non water authority sites
Speaker 1: you described exist.
Speaker 2: Yes, so again, other than that the drinking water sites
Speaker 2: that are impacted A good, a really good basis for
Speaker 2: this was a paper that was published by Derek Salvatory
Speaker 2: and a group at Northeastern University, and a few others
Speaker 2: were involved too. There was something like ten authors on
Speaker 2: this paper, so it's pretty comprehensive. It was published in
Speaker 2: the American Chemical Society Journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters,
Speaker 2: and it was published last year, late last year. And
Speaker 2: what they did is they put together a probabilistic model
Speaker 2: and tried to statistically estimate how many project sites or
Speaker 2: how many sites out there in the US are impacted
Speaker 2: by pfasts or contaminated by PFAST and they came up
Speaker 2: with about five hundred and nineteen airports, thirty five hundred
Speaker 2: military bases, and some forty nine thousand industrial facilities. And
Speaker 2: those industrial facilities would include landfills, refineries, and manufacturing, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So it's a huge number. And in terms of liability,
Speaker 2: I mean, I can tell you, you know, a remediation,
Speaker 2: a remediation of the refinery site that I mentioned that
Speaker 2: we had completed. A large engineering firm, multinational engineering firm
Speaker 2: undertook that cleanup and they compared our technology to the
Speaker 2: typical technology of pumping the water from the ground and
Speaker 2: treating it and they said, just you know, just the
Speaker 2: installation alone would have been twenty some million dollars just
Speaker 2: for the installation of the pumping system implementing our technology.
Speaker 2: They were able to do that for about three point
Speaker 2: five million. So there's a huge looming latent liability out
Speaker 2: there to clean these sites up, and the typical way
Speaker 2: to do that is to try to recover the water
Speaker 2: from the subsurface and put it through different techniques to
Speaker 2: concentrate it, whether you're bubbling it and skimming off the
Speaker 2: bubbles or whether you're putting it on ato activity carbon.
Speaker 2: Those pumping systems are trying to flush the pfast out
Speaker 2: of the subsurface. And flushing it out of the subsurface
Speaker 2: is what's been coined by a leading researcher remediation of perpetuity.
Speaker 2: Trying to wash pfasts out of the subsurface aquaf for
Speaker 2: by pumping the water out will take more than my lifetime,
Speaker 2: your lifetime, your children's lifetime. It's going to take one
Speaker 2: hundred plus years of pumping. So it's at a huge
Speaker 2: cost on an annual basis. So it's really a looming
Speaker 2: huge liability.
Speaker 1: So there's pumping and treating and then what you do,
Speaker 1: which I'll ask you to explain in a minute. And
Speaker 1: then with respect to water authorities, what are the methods
Speaker 1: there using to address p fasts in the drinking water.
Speaker 2: Okay, so again looking at the sites, now we're downgradient,
Speaker 2: we're down where the drinking water is being impacted. Right
Speaker 2: where drinking water is being impacted, what they will most
Speaker 2: likely do is is the water they pulled out of
Speaker 2: the ground, they have to treat that to some extent anyway,
Speaker 2: So it's already in a pipe, so what they'll what
Speaker 2: they'll do is they will put that through probably what's
Speaker 2: known as ion exchange resins. Much like a water software
Speaker 2: takes takes takes minerals out, there are certain ion exchange
Speaker 2: resins that that will pull p fasts out and then
Speaker 2: they can regenerate those or dispose of them, or they'll
Speaker 2: put it through activated carbon which is like charcoal, huge
Speaker 2: charcoal filters that they'll put the water through and it'll
Speaker 2: strip the p fass out onto the carbon. So that's
Speaker 2: the types of technologies that they will implement at the
Speaker 2: water at the water authorities.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so with respect to the other sites that
Speaker 1: we talked about in the technology that you've implemented that
Speaker 1: you'll explain in a minute, why would those other sites
Speaker 1: have to be remediated if they're already treating the water,
Speaker 1: if they intend to treat the water at the water
Speaker 1: authority anyway.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, you have to remember that the p fast
Speaker 2: moving in the subsurface in groundwater, is it spreads, you're
Speaker 2: impacting a wider and wider and wider amount of the
Speaker 2: water resource. We have not all of groundwater's impact factory,
Speaker 2: very small amounts impacted at this point, and so the
Speaker 2: intent is to the intent of designating this as a
Speaker 2: hazardous substances to make it so that people have to
Speaker 2: clean it up. What last thing we want is the
Speaker 2: water resources, the groundwater to be impacted throughout the US
Speaker 2: so that it always has to be treated with these
Speaker 2: expensive methodologies. The other thing you have to remember is
Speaker 2: that groundwater impact surface water, So all the streams, all
Speaker 2: the lakes, they are all in communication with groundwater. And
Speaker 2: when PFAST is in the groundwater leaking from a military
Speaker 2: base or an airport or an industrial facility into the groundwater,
Speaker 2: it's migrating under people's homes, through past their domestic wells,
Speaker 2: and then into streams where it makes foam and it
Speaker 2: impacts the fish, the wildlife. It's toxic and impacts them
Speaker 2: as well. So it's insidious and it has a large
Speaker 2: natural resource damages liability with it. With the impacting of
Speaker 2: groundwater with PFAST, not to mention third party liability from
Speaker 2: people that are swimming in lakes and streams that are
Speaker 2: being impacted by pfast generated from a nearby airport or
Speaker 2: military base. So it's not just drinking water, it's the
Speaker 2: natural resource itself that's being impacted.
Speaker 1: So we've heard that in a number of companies. I've
Speaker 1: entered into deals to resolve water authority lawsuits, So lawsuits
Speaker 1: over the drinking water. What are and you touched upon this,
Speaker 1: but what are the remaining risks for What other risks
Speaker 1: are out there for those companies, Well, all.
Speaker 2: Of the remediation risk. When I say remediation, I mean
Speaker 2: cleaning up the sites that caused the problem. So you
Speaker 2: know that is a huge looming liability. As I said,
Speaker 2: you know forty nine thousand industrial facilities out there that
Speaker 2: if this probabilistic models correct, a large portion of those
Speaker 2: are going to have to implement a remediation of groundwater
Speaker 2: and soil. They're going to have to treat the source
Speaker 2: of the contamination on their site, and if it's going
Speaker 2: off site, they're probably going to have to treat the
Speaker 2: groundwater that's migrated off site. And that's you know, as
Speaker 2: the example I gave you the twenty million dollars for
Speaker 2: the refinery. That's the cost of putting in a pumping
Speaker 2: system if you know, somewhere are going to be somewhere
Speaker 2: between three million and twenty million dollars just for the installation,
Speaker 2: So it could be at it's a huge liability.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's just you know, just just assuming that
Speaker 1: their you know, causation could be proven and like you know,
Speaker 1: the p FEST could be tied to those companies. So
Speaker 1: with respect to and so we talked. I think he said,
Speaker 1: you were talking about a refinery where the installation of
Speaker 1: the pumping and treating method could just could cost three
Speaker 1: to twenty million dollars. Is that true? Like at any
Speaker 1: p FAS site, like for example, another a triple le
Speaker 1: F site, because I'm trying to get an idea of
Speaker 1: and that's the firefighting home sites. I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: an idea of how much remediation and a single a
Speaker 1: triple left site could cost.
Speaker 2: Well, again, and it depends on the technology used. There
Speaker 2: will be the sorce area. We'll have to stabilize the
Speaker 2: soils or aul the soils off to be disposed of.
Speaker 2: So worst case, worst case, it would be you know,
Speaker 2: in the in the tens of millions of dollars for
Speaker 2: soil treatment, uh and then and then tens of million
Speaker 2: dollars of dollars to install a pumping system and then
Speaker 2: to operate it a million, you know, eight hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a year to operate something like that. I mean
Speaker 2: that's eight hundred to a million dollars operated per year.
Speaker 2: So that's a you know, that's sort of the worst
Speaker 2: case with our technology that we've developed.
Speaker 1: We've been is that what is that technology called?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, so the technology that we've developed is and
Speaker 2: let me just finish my thought. Instead of a twenty
Speaker 2: million dollar install on eight hundred thousand dollars a year
Speaker 2: or so, there's a military base where we just did
Speaker 2: a cost comparison. You know, we were able to do
Speaker 2: an installation for under four million dollars with no operation
Speaker 2: costs at all. So we can lower the liability for
Speaker 2: these sites by you know, by by a factor of three,
Speaker 2: so three five to three. So so we've taken a
Speaker 2: twenty million dollar installed down a three million with no
Speaker 2: operation of maintenance. So over time that could be one
Speaker 2: tenth the cost of a typical pumping system. So what
Speaker 2: we've done is instead of taking the water out of
Speaker 2: the ground and putting it through filtration apparatus to try
Speaker 2: to filter it out, which is which is the traditional
Speaker 2: way to treat things, and then having to dispose of
Speaker 2: that material once you've once you've pulled it out of
Speaker 2: the ground, which is a whole nother liability. You know,
Speaker 2: if you filter these chemicals out and put it onto
Speaker 2: carbon or onto iron exchange resident and then dispose of that,
Speaker 2: now you own part of the landfill under CIRCLA. Because
Speaker 2: anytime you dispose of things, it's joint in several liability
Speaker 2: under CIRCLEA if so, so it's a continuing liability for
Speaker 2: the responsible party. What we've done is we've taken activated carbon,
Speaker 2: the charcoal material, and we mill it to the size
Speaker 2: of a red blood cell. We get it down to
Speaker 2: the size of one micron, and we wrap that with
Speaker 2: negatively charged polymers so that it stays in suspension at
Speaker 2: the one micron size, so it looks like water. It
Speaker 2: looks like black ink with the consistency of water. We
Speaker 2: actually then pour that down into the aquifer down wells
Speaker 2: and pour it right into the aquifer where it paints
Speaker 2: the all of the sand and soil and rock cracks
Speaker 2: are filled with water on the subsurface, it paints it black.
Speaker 2: In other words, the surface has become coated with this
Speaker 2: carbon permanently. So we make the subsurface into which you
Speaker 2: could think of as a huge Brita filter. So we
Speaker 2: convert the contaminated aquifer into a huge purifying filter and
Speaker 2: it strips all the p fasts out. So when you
Speaker 2: get down gradient on the other side of the the
Speaker 2: area that we've treated, the water is coming out pure
Speaker 2: without any without any p fascenter. And so you know,
Speaker 2: we've been doing this for years with other with other contaminants,
Speaker 2: treating the subsurface of the contaminants, and in the past
Speaker 2: say five years now, people have begun to use our technology.
Speaker 2: We call it plume Stop. A plume is a is
Speaker 2: a body of contamination within an aquifer. So we call
Speaker 2: it plume stop because it just binds up all the
Speaker 2: p fasts stops the plume from migrating. The water continues
Speaker 2: to migrate in the subsurface. The groundwater moves, but it's
Speaker 2: now purified and cleaned as it moves through the air
Speaker 2: through the area. So the plume stop technology requires no
Speaker 2: op and maintenance. So once you put it in the ground,
Speaker 2: you're done for. And if you treat the source up gradient,
Speaker 2: if you you know, the fire training pit or whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, one application of plume stop could last forever.
Speaker 2: If for some reason you can't treat the incoming concentration
Speaker 2: of p FAST into the area that you've treated, you
Speaker 2: can simply reinject it in fifty years and it'll give
Speaker 2: you another fifty one hundred years of treatment. So it's
Speaker 2: a it's a way that you can actually limit the
Speaker 2: liability by eliminating any risk to anyone down gradient. So
Speaker 2: you know, remember that risk environmental risk is equal to
Speaker 2: hazard times exposure. And while the PFAST has a hazard
Speaker 2: because it can't be degraded, doesn't degrade. Well, that's why
Speaker 2: it's called forever chemical. The hazard that is not a
Speaker 2: risk if you can eliminate the exposure to it. So
Speaker 2: by buying it up in the subsurface, you know, fifty
Speaker 2: sixty feet down, it's at no risk to anybody and
Speaker 2: it's not migrating, so there's no risk downgrading. So that's
Speaker 2: what we're able to do with plume stop.
Speaker 1: About it, and so turn shifting years a little, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the EPA proposal. They proposed a
Speaker 1: rule in March to set maximum contaminant levels and water.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what maximum contaminant levels are and what
Speaker 1: obstacles there could be to achieving those levels?
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and
Speaker 2: that's the MCLs and maximum concentration level they were proposed.
Speaker 2: They're very, very very low. They're in the range of
Speaker 2: four parts per trillion. It's near the level of quantitation
Speaker 2: that you can you can achieve and analytical methods, and
Speaker 2: it's it's for a few key a few two key
Speaker 2: p fast compounds and then an index for the balance
Speaker 2: of them. It's Uh, they're proposed. I don't know when
Speaker 2: that that will be uh, when they'll be promulgated. However,
Speaker 2: it you know it it is forced this for it's
Speaker 2: mostly relating to drinking water and whether those m c
Speaker 2: ls will be enforced for cleanup levels under CIRCLA has
Speaker 2: yet to be determined. That there's some questions about how
Speaker 2: they will try to implement those levels. Uh. But but uh,
Speaker 2: once once that's finalized, it certainly is going to change
Speaker 2: the complexion of of the environmental remediation requirements for pfacts.
Speaker 2: It will drive demand for remediation, and uh, it will
Speaker 2: drive liability for industries that are using these compounds and
Speaker 2: potentially for the the original manufacturers will have to see.
Speaker 1: So what types of sites do you think will be
Speaker 1: the main focus of key fast remediation in the future.
Speaker 2: Well, as I say, you know, military bases, airports, and
Speaker 2: these industrial facilities that range and everything from refineries to
Speaker 2: small and you know manufacturing facilities, et cetera. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's there's a whole range of different different types of
Speaker 2: of projects that we'll see undertake remediation.
Speaker 1: Right, So it sounds like it's it's not quite over
Speaker 1: yet that will be discussing this probably years from now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say it's just beginning.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, thank you so much, Scott. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: your time and look forward to reading more about what
Speaker 1: you have to say in the future.
Speaker 2: M