MacRae interviewed in BDN about PFAS in wastewater treatment plants
Jean MacRae, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maine, spoke with the Bangor Daily News for an article about PFAS in Maine’s waterways. MacRae said that wastewater treatment plants make the water safe enough to pump back into a waterway, but they don’t treat it for PFAS, and they’re not required to. “PFAS are not reliably removed in wastewater treatment, which is designed to remove more ‘normal’ organic matter … like food and feces, not so much these low-level, hard-to-degrade contaminants like PFAS. So, unfortunately, you end up with contaminated water and contaminated solids,” MacRae said.