Maximizing the Dual Benefits of Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant Processes: Reducing Nutrients and Emerging Contaminants

Growing concerns over potential environmental and human risks from endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), such as pharmaceutical and personal care products (P/PCP), have prompted this workshop. Evidence of possible impact to the living resources of the Chesapeake watershed (e.g., fish) suggest that a greater understanding of the contribution of EDCs from wastewater effluent to surface waters is needed. As WWTPs in the Chesapeake Bay are dealing with implementation of ENR through limit of technology (LOT) strategies, the issue of EDC-P/PCP fate and nutrient control is inevitably linked. The objective of the workshop is to collect information about upstream sources of EDCs, the behavior of EDCs in enhanced nutrient removal (ENR), and the impact to biosolids and reclaimed wastewater, and to provide the information to wastewater plant authorities, designers, and operators. Although past workshops on EDCs and P/PCPs have discussed the role of nutrients, that discussion has tended to be superficial. This workshop will have a national impact as it will explicitly address the current and planned uses of ENR and how those decisions will impact or influence EDC-P/PCP fate. Workshop proceedings will be synthesized into a technical brief that will be distributed to the wastewater community and to state and federal environmental agencies.