Mayor reports on PFAS briefings in Washington; cautions on costs and coordination with desalination

Mayor Angelo Castillo reported on his attendance at the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting, where PFAS and water quality were a prominent topic. Castillo said conference presenters described PFAS as ubiquitous and observed that technology exists to remove PFAS from water but that disposing of captured PFAS remains a challenge.

Castillo relayed an example shared by conference scientists: current allowable PFAS levels equate to a single drop per four Olympic-size swimming pools. Panelists at the conference said removal methods exist but that the long-term destruction or disposal of PFAS-laden materials (for example, membrane concentrates) remains unresolved.

Financial and planning concerns

- Castillo noted estimated retrofit costs for some municipal water systems could be large (he cited about $120 million as an estimate for a single city), and attendees described potential costs at the scale of many hundreds of millions to billions for numerous water providers.

- Castillo asked whether PFAS-remediation investments could be coordinated with broader water projects such as desalination or saltwater-intrusion response to deliver multiple benefits.

Council response and next steps

- Planning Council members and staff encouraged cross-agency coordination rather than siloed investments, and noted the county has water-quality and saltwater-intrusion priorities that should be aligned with PFAS remediation planning. Staff and members suggested following federal and state actions and pursuing a regional approach to planning and funding to avoid piecemeal, costly investments.

Ending: Castillo and members asked staff to stay alert to federal and state developments and to coordinate with county water providers and planning staff as PFAS and desalination needs evolve.