The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) announced $25 million in funding to help Tucson Water improve its treatment of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at a Tucson Water treatment plant, addressing severe groundwater contamination related to a federal Superfund site.
The investment will provide additional treatment improvements to adapt the Tucson Airport Remediation Project (TARP) treatment approach to incorporate a unit process specifically targeted to PFAS removal. The improvement will help TARP continue treating contaminated groundwater in the area.
“This funding will help Tucson Water secure Tucson’s water supply for future generations,” says Ariz. Governor Doug Ducey. “Every source of water in Arizona is critical as we face drought conditions and the risk of a drier future.”
Tucson Water has operated TARP since 1994 to treat and contain a plume of contaminated groundwater near Tucson International Airport, removing industrial chemicals TCE and 1,4-Dioxane and delivering the cleaned water into the drinking water system. Arizona’s investment will help the City of Tucson meet the plant’s original mission of containing the decades-old plume of groundwater contaminated with TCE and 1,4-Dioxane.
“I am grateful for this collaboration with Director Cabrera and ADEQ to continue protecting our water security,” says Tucson Mayor Regina Romero. “We are all too aware of the painful history of water contamination in our region, especially those impacting disadvantaged communities. There is much work to do to clean up PFAS throughout the Tucson region, and this is an important step forward."
The $25 million in federal funds will be used to build additional treatment processes for the removal of PFAS from the recovered impacted groundwater from the TARP wellfields. ADEQ and Tucson Water are working on an intergovernmental agreement to facilitate the use of the funding.
To date, Tucson Water has spent over $30 million to address PFAS locally, continuing to test all drinking water sources for the compounds across its 390 square mile service area, turning off contaminated wells and drilling new ones in clean areas, and removing PFAS at TARP.
