KDHE Bureau of Water warns of PFAS uncertainty and a looming SRF funding 'cliff'
Loading...
Summary
William Carr, bureau director at KDHE, told the Committee on Water that EPA PFAS rules and State Revolving Fund changes are creating regulatory uncertainty and funding risks; KDHE labs began PFAS testing and the bureau is preparing rule packages on injection fees, permit terms and reuse.
William Carr, bureau director for the Bureau of Water at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, briefed the committee on bureau responsibilities, current contamination trends, PFAS implementation timelines and a deteriorating funding outlook tied to State Revolving Fund (SRF) shifts.
Carr summarized water-quality compliance in Kansas over the last four years: nitrates were the most common groundwater exceedance (33 systems at one time over the period) and E. coli events (10 systems) were usually one-off distribution failures. On surface-water plants, the main compliance issues were disinfection byproducts—haloacetic acids (38 systems) and trihalomethanes (31 systems)—which arise when treatment disinfectants react with organic carbon.
On PFAS, Carr explained EPA’s 2024 rule regulated six PFAS compounds but that a May 2025 EPA announcement signaled a plan to narrow federal regulation to two PFAS compounds and to change compliance timing. He told the committee KDHE labs "started doing the analysis for these PFAS substances last month" and noted initial monitoring for all public water systems is required by April 2027 under current federal rules, with systems required to meet MCLs by April 2029 (EPA had suggested moving that compliance date later in public statements).
Carr urged caution about reuse regulation: he said potable reuse (direct or indirect) lacks federal consensus and requires state-led research and standards development, would be expensive for systems and may require additional advanced treatment and operation capacity. He emphasized that KDHE lacks capacity to perform all needed reuse research and that rulemaking will be complex.
On funding, Carr warned of a ‘‘physical cliff’’ for SRF administrative funds. He described a pattern in which federal earmarks and declines in base SRF appropriations—plus the expiration of supplemental infrastructure act funding—have reduced the funds available to administer public water programs. Carr said SRF appropriations could fall to approximately 42% of a normal year and that the administrative funds KDHE historically used could decline substantially, imperiling routine regulatory functions without alternative state funding.
Committee members asked about lead service line inventories, monitoring frequency and PFAS treatment/disposal options; Carr said inventories improved reporting accuracy but replacement requirements remain (10-year replacement for unknown or lead-determined lines), monitoring frequency varies with contaminant levels, and while some technologies (e.g., granular activated carbon) can remove PFAS from water, disposal or destruction of PFAS-laden residuals remains a problem that often requires extreme thermal processes.
Carr closed by flagging a slate of ongoing rulemaking items—including underground injection control fees, permit-term changes, wastewater fees updates, and a drinking water line extension/replacement regulation package—and said KDHE would be testifying on reuse-related statutory changes later in the week.
