Understanding the complex nature and consequences of water contaminants and providing critical data to empower effective and time-critical solutions.
Issue
Despite nearly two decades of research on the sources, fate and transport, and potential aquatic impacts of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), there is little evidence that the occurrence of these novel contaminants is decreasing.
Domestic, industrial, and hospital wastewater remain a source of pharmaceutical contaminants and personal care products, while agricultural activities remain a source of manure-borne hormones, veterinary antibiotics, and pesticides. Water quality regulations exist for many traditional contaminants, but most CECs do not have water quality standards and remain unregulated. Further, wastewater treatment plants were not designed to remove such contaminants; any removal is coincidental rather than deliberate. Agricultural best management practices (BMPs) have been specifically designed and adopted with the goal of reducing nutrients and sediment from runoff, but the co-benefits or potential unintended negative impacts of these practices on CEC fate and transport remains understudied. The increasing use of treated wastewater, especially for agricultural spray-irrigation, inadvertently introduces CECs into the terrestrial environment, and eventually into surface water, groundwater aquifers, and/or the crops themselves.
Wastewater has also recently become the focus of great interest as it has been leveraged for critical community-level decision making to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Wastewater can be used in surveillance efforts to understand the presence of pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2, and related pharmaceuticals. Wastewater surveillance provides an excellent window into the physical and mental health of residents at a community scale.
Researchers in this initiative are seeking to not only understand the impacts of individual and mixtures of CECs on ecosystem and human health, but to design and assess solutions for improving the treatment of CECs in wastewater treatment plants, water reclamation facilities, and drinking water treatment plants. Research programs in this initiative not only address critical research needs, but can be immediately used in critical decision-making efforts.
Co-conveners
Heather Preisendanz, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Director, Institute of Sustainable Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences
Jon Sweetman, Ph.D
Assistant Research Professor, Ecosystem Science and Management
Associated Members
Associates
- Daniela Carrijo, Associate Professor, Plant Sciences
- Lara Fowler, Senior Lecturer, Penn State Law & Assistant Director IEE*
- Jason Keagy, Assistant Research Professor, Ecosystems Science Management
- Joshua Lambert, Professor, Food Science*
- Jenn Macalady, Professor of Geosciences*
- Matthew Royer, Assistant Research Professor, Director Agriculture & Environment Center*
- John Tooker, Professor, Entomology
- Jack Vanden Heuvel, Professor, Molecular Toxicology
- Juliana Vasco-Correa, Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering*
Affiliates
- Elizabeth Boyer, Professor, Water Resources*
- Rachel Brennan, Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering*
- Daniel Brent, Assistant Professor
- Anil Kumar Chaudhary, Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Extension Education*
- Stephen Chmely, Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering*
- Shirley Clark, Professor, Environmental Engineering
- Dennis Decoteau, Professor, Horticulture & Plant Ecosystem Health
- Estelle Couradeau, Assistant Professor, Soils and Environmental Microbiology*
- Herschel Elliott, Professor Emeritus, Agricultural & Biological Engineering
- Lisa Emili, Associate Professor, Physical Geography & Environmental Studies
- Jennifer Fetter, Extension Educator, Water Resources*
- Jill Felker, Lecturer, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Erika Ganda, Assistant Professor of Food Animal Microbiomes*
- Michael Mashtare, Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering*
- Tami Mysliwiec, Associate Professor of Biology, Penn State Berks*
- Meera Surendran Nair, Assistant Clinical Professor Resident, Veterinary Microbiology*
- Andrew Read, Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences*
- Rui Shi, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering*
- Meng Wang, Assistant Professor, Environmental Systems Engineering*
- Nathaniel Warner, Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
- Jack Watson, Professor, Soil Science/Soil Physics & Biogeochemistry
