CDM Smith & Colorado School of Mines Selected for SERDP R&D Study

BOSTON—CDM Smith, the Col­orado School of Mines, Ore­gon State Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia were awarded a Strate­gic En­vi­ron­men­tal Re­search and De­vel­op­ment Pro­gram (SERDP) re­search and de­vel­op­ment study to ob­serve in­ter­ac­tions and the im­pact of trans­port processes at fa­cil­i­ties in­volv­ing per­flu­o­roalkyl and poly­flu­o­roalkyl sub­stances (PFAS) in the en­vi­ron­ment. PFAS bioac­cu­mu­late and can lead to ad­verse health ef­fects. The Col­orado School of Mines will be the pro­ject lead.  

This 3-year, $1.5 mil­lion pro­ject will ex­am­ine in­ter­ac­tions be­tween PFAS and other com­pounds through care­fully con­trolled lab­o­ra­tory ex­per­i­ments. The con­cern around PFAS is be­com­ing more ur­gent as ad­verse im­pacts on ground­wa­ter be­come wide­spread. These mixed con­t­a­m­i­nant sys­tems may pose a sig­nif­i­cant bar­rier to site clo­sure.  

While novel re­me­di­a­tion tech­nolo­gies for PFAS are being tested in other SERDP pro­jects, the work pro­posed here will sig­nif­i­cantly en­hance our un­der­stand­ing of the role of source zones and low per­me­abil­ity ma­te­ri­als in PFAS re­leases to ground­wa­ter. These data will en­able fa­cil­i­ties to ap­pro­pri­ately apply re­me­di­a­tion tech­nolo­gies.  

CDM Smith pro­vides last­ing and in­te­grated so­lu­tions in water, en­vi­ron­ment, trans­porta­tion, en­ergy and fa­cil­i­ties to pub­lic and pri­vate clients world­wide. As a full-ser­vice en­gi­neer­ing and con­struc­tion firm, we de­liver ex­cep­tional client ser­vice, qual­ity re­sults and en­dur­ing value across the en­tire pro­ject life cycle.