VDH and DEQ outline PFAS and lead compliance timeline and DEQ27s source-assessment plan

State health and environmental officials told the Virginia Water Commission they are ramping monitoring and planning to implement federal PFAS and lead rules and to identify likely PFAS sources that require further action.

Duane Roadcap, director of the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) Office of Drinking Water, summarized a recently completed state study estimating the costs systems may face to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency27s (EPA) PFAS rule and the lead service-line replacement provisions of the Lead and Copper Rule. Roadcap said the state regulates about 2,860 public water systems and that community systems subject to the new rules total roughly 1,580.

"PFOA and PFOS have maximum contaminant levels of 4 parts per trillion," Roadcap said, summarizing the federal rule that requires initial monitoring and then compliance monitoring and treatment timelines under the current EPA schedule. VDH staff told the commission capital costs to comply with PFAS treatment could range widely — Roadcap and colleagues provided a study range of about $643,000,900 to $4,000,000,000 in capital expenditures statewide through the current compliance dates — and operating costs were separately estimated in the tens of millions annually. VDH also summarized lead-service-line inventories: as of the April update, waterworks had reported roughly 3,696 identified lead service lines, with many service-line materials still listed as "unknown." The study projected lead service-line replacement capital between roughly $290 million and $670 million statewide, with related operating costs and monitoring described separately.

Bailey Davis, VDH chief of field operations, described initial monitoring requirements by system size and source: large surface-water systems and groundwater systems serving more than 10,000 customers must sample quarterly for an initial 12-month period; smaller groundwater systems sample twice spaced months apart. Roadcap and Davis noted EPA litigation and abeyance requests could change some deadlines; EPA proposed adjustments in May that would keep PFOA/PFOS MCLs while rescinding certain other compound-specific MCLs and could extend compliance deadlines to 2031.

Bridal (Bridal) Thomas, interim director of DEQ27s water division, outlined DEQ27s 2025 implementation activities: DEQ has published a prioritization plan driven by population served and degree of exceedance and published lists of high-, medium- and low-priority systems for source assessment. DEQ sent about 185 notifications in November to facilities in watersheds upstream of intakes with exceedances and asked those facilities to self-report PFAS manufacture/use and begin representative discharge monitoring in the second quarter of 2025. Thomas said DEQ has received responses from more than 90% of notified facilities so far and that DEQ will include 2025-notified systems in the 2026 prioritization plan.

Thomas said DEQ27s source-assessment plan aims to leverage existing staff and federal funds where possible; she told commissioners DEQ expects to have significant data collection and initial source-assessment progress on the highest-priority systems through 2026, with remediation timing dependent on the nature of sources and available technologies.

Commissioners pressed on monitoring details, public notification and the disposition of PFAS-bearing treatment media. Officials said that captured PFAS can concentrate on carbon media and that disposal and destruction options (landfill, high-temperature destruction) remain a major technical and policy challenge, and that sister agencies such as DEQ will be engaged on solid-waste and disposal issues.

The agencies made technical data available and said interactive maps and data remain posted on their websites; they said they will continue to update priorities as additional monitoring data arrives.