Welcome back to Talking PFAS podcast.  I am a journalist and your host, Kayleen Bell.  Episode 37 - Published 25/11/2022. Thanks for being patient listeners (as I have been unwell since the Conference).  It is good to be back with new episodes. For the next several weeks I will be bringing you episodes recorded at the International Clean Up 2022 Conference held in Adelaide mid-September, hosted by CRC Care.  I have already published two interviews recorded at the conference, episode 35 and episode 36 and I encourage you to have a listen.  There are six more to come from this conference, hopefully I can get them all up before Christmas, if not they will run into January, 2023. Today’s guest is Paul Nathanail from Nottingham, England, Technical Director of LQM, which specialises in contaminated land management in England and around the world.  Paul was a keynote speaker at the Clean-Up Conference and in today’s episode we will discuss details from his talk on PFAS.  In brief, Paul believes we need to form an International Working Group to look at the entire universe of PFAS and then break this universe down into galaxies of individual PFAS substances that have more or less the same chemical properties and more or less the same toxicity properties.  He will explain this in more detail in today’s discussion.  I would like to point out that he refers to this universe of PFAS chemicals at around 9000, and at the last count that I heard, was 12,000, so the PFAS universe seems to be growing all the time. Now to today’s chat with Paul Nathanail. LQM (Land Quality Management) based in England but they work all around the world.  https://www.lqm.co.uk/ Their website states: LQM is a specialist environmental consultancy based in Nottingham (UK) with an international track record of assessing and managing the risks posed to human health and the environment by contaminants in soil.  Increasingly, this is being done within a context of sustainable development and specifically sustainable brownfield regeneration.” About LQM from today’s discussion: “We are specialists in contaminated land management (not just PFAS).   LQM does high level consultancy.  We write a lot of technical guidance.  We developed the biggest set of soil screening levels that are used in the UK.  I helped to write the International Standard on Sustainable Remediation. We run training courses.  We write books and occasionally we go to conferences in far-flung placed like Adelaide.”  Paul Nathanail, Technical Director LQM Please subscribe to the podcast so you do not miss an episode.  Please share the podcast also on social media, or with colleagues etc, but please note all information in this episode is copyright so can not be reproduced in any way without permission from the rights holder at [email protected] *NB: The 10 million contaminated sites we speak about in this episode was a number that was given at the Clean Up 2022 conference – please note this number is not just PFAS sites, but would include some of those. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back to Talking PFAS podcast.  I am a journalist and your host Kayleen Bell.   For the next several weeks I will be bringing you episodes recorded at the International Clean Up 2022 Conference in Adelaide mid-September, hosted by CRC Care. The Heads of EPAs of Australia and New Zealand known as (HEPA) are about to release the draft version 3.0 of the National Environmental Plan (NEMP) for public consultation. This version contains important new guidance and standards which builds on version 2.0 published in 2020. A brief overview on the draft NEMP was presented on Monday 12/9/2022 at Clean Up Conference 2022 in Adelaide by Dr Sara Broomhall who is the National co-ordinator for the PFAS NEMP & Director of Policy Advice and Integration Section from Department of Climate Change Energy, the Environment and Water. As well as being National co-ordinator of the PFAS NEMP Sara has also covered things such as Stockholm Convention’s global monitoring work and the OECD chemicals work which sets a lot of the global standards about how we do risk assessment of chemicals.  The NEMP has had over 27,000 unique downloads and unique page views from over 50 countries.  In NEMP 3.0 various areas requiring attention (leftover from NEMP 2.0) have been grouped under themes, and each theme is led by a jurisdiction in Australia and has a range of other jurisdictions participating and contributing to those themes. In brief: Theme 1 is PFAS Family – led by QLD – which will focus on international approaches to grouping. Theme 2 is Environmental data and monitoring – led by VIC & QLD. Theme 3 is Water – led by SA – and will focus on risk based criteria and guidance for beneficial reuse of biosolids. Theme 4 is Soil – led by NSW – and focuses on PFAS behaviour in soil including leaching and guideline values. Theme 5 is Resource Recovery & Waste – led by WA – which will focus on management of risks associated with PFAS in resource recovery products. Theme 6 is Site Specific Guidance – led by the Commonwealth – and it has three projects operating under it.  The first is a new section on approaches to remediation and management and Dr Sara Broomhall is the theme lead for that piece of work. The other two areas the Commonwealth will be responsible for is guidance on approaches to dealing with water from construction activities and then guidance on marine sediments. Dr Sara Broomhall’s co-presenter on Monday (12/9/2022) was Dr Shaun Thomas who is a Principal Advisor for Wastewater in the SA EPA, and he is the lead on Theme 3.  He is my special guest today. Shaun is involved in the National Chemicals Working Group which works under HEPA and works on the NEMP.  His main interest in PFAS is in biosolids and how we better manage the potential concentrations of PFAS in biosolids.  Shaun said “no two territories and states have exactly the same approach for biosolids, and they took this into consideration.  He said of the jurisdictions who had done some work already in the PFAS space QLD was the most prominent but his team also engaged quite heavily with NSW who have done a lot of work developing some guidance that hasn’t been published yet. *UPDATE The draft NEMP version 3.0 has been released https://haveyoursay.agriculture.gov.au/nemp-on-pfas Copyright Notice: Please share the entire episode with your colleagues and /or on your social media or website but with full contribution to the copyright holder Kayleen Bell Journalist & Producer Talking PFAS podcast. No editing or use of material here in articles is permitted without first contacting the rights holder at [email protected] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the next several weeks I will be publishing episodes from PFAS discussions I had in person with a range of people at the International Clean Up 2022 Conference which was held in Adelaide, South Australia.  This conference is hosted by CRC Care, and there were over 600 delegates (including about 100) online who attended from over 28 countries.  There were over 230 oral sessions, and far too many PFAS sessions to count or for one person to attend them all. Today’s guest is Professor Mark Patrick Taylor, and we will briefly discussed his research that he did with firefighters which used blood and plasma donations to reduce PFAS levels in their blood.  This research was published around April 2022, and received a lot of media attention. We will also explore Mark’s opinion of what PFAS means in the environment and people’s concerns around this class of chemicals and he will also talk generally about impacts of other chemicals in our world and what he says we can all do about it. The next discussion from Clean Up 2022 will be published on Monday 26/9/22 then weekly after that until the end of October.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back to Talking PFAS Podcast I am a journalist and your host Kayleen Bell. And if you are joining us for the first time welcome.  My guest today is Professor Ian Cousins from the Department of Environmental Science at Stockholm University in Sweden.  Now I have interviewed Ian before in Episode 21 when we spoke about his PFAS Essential Use paper and I highly recommend a listen to that one. Professor Cousins has a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of York and a PhD in environmental science from Lancaster University.  He is well-known for his research on the sources, transport and fate and exposure pathways of PFAS.  In recent years Professor Cousins has written a series of policy related articles driven by his concern about the continued use of PFAS.  Today we are going to be discussing his recent perspective paper “Outside the Safe Operating Space of a New Planetary Boundary for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS” published in the Environmental Science & Technology journalist on the 2/8/2022. Ian and colleagues state in their conclusion: “We conclude that PFAS define a new planetary boundary that has been exceeded based on PFAS levels in environmental media being ubiquitously above guideline levels.  Irrespective of whether or not one agrees with our conclusion that the planetary boundary for PFAS is exceeded. It is nevertheless highly problematic that everywhere on earth where humans reside, recently proposed health advisories can not be achieved without large investment in advanced clean up technology.” I will be heading to Adelaide in a couple of days (actually here now) for the International Clean Up Conference Adelaide 2022 where I hope to talk to a range of experts in Australia and around the world about some of those advanced clean up technologies that might exist now or be emerging so stay tuned for that one.  The US EPA has made some significant announcements regarding PFAS in the last couple of months and in today’s episode I will provide details of these.  Ian Cousins et al paper “Outside the Safe Operating Space of a New Planetary Boundary for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)” https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765 EPA’s proposed rule to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances Federal Register https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-09-06/pdf/2022-18657.pdf EPA Announces New Drinking Water Health Advisories for PFAS Chemicals https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-new-drinking-water-health-advisories-pfas-chemicals-1-billion-bipartisanSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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