Hosted by the US Environmental Protection Agency
Presentation 1: Wildfire Implications for Drinking Water Systems
The rise in wildfire activity in municipal watersheds has created new uncertainties, unprecedented challenges, and substantial costs for drinking water utilities. Source water quality can be highly variable and dramatically altered following fire, which can challenge water treatment process performance. The results of several projects in collaboration with water providers will be discussed with particular emphasis on dissolved organic matter character and treatability, as well as disinfection byproduct formation. Lastly, a new transdisciplinary project with the overarching goal of increasing water system resiliency to wildfire will be discussed.
Presentation 2: Wildfires Can Increase Drinking Water Contamination: Nitrate, Arsenic, and Disinfection Byproducts
Wildfires are a concern for water quality in the United States, particularly in the wildland-urban interface of populous areas. On average, in the contiguous United States, wildfires are associated with an increase in drinking water concentrations and maximum contaminant level violations for nitrate, disinfection byproducts, and arsenic and it can take several years for impacted systems to recover. This presentation will discuss these issues and the how the impact of wildfires on drinking water is regionally important, with larger impacts in certain locations or no impacts in other locations, which may be attributed to other factors, such as the use of drinking water treatment or the type of land use.