Presently, certain conventional analytical methods for analyzing drinking water samples from public water supplies for specific, or targeted, organic chemical contamination are required by the NJ Safe Drinking Water Act. For the most part, this routine testing is adequate for the determination of commonly occurring volatile organic chemicals (VOCs). It was always known that VOCs, which are the current regulatory focus of analysis for organics in drinking water, may serve as markers for the presence of mostly unregulated non- and semi-volatile contaminants in addition to being significant in their own right. In situations where impacted water is being used as a potable source, this issue is very important. In the past, reliable analytical methods were not available to determine the presence or the nature of many non-volatile (e.g., some pharmaceuticals, dyes, inks) and semi-volatile (e.g., plasticizers, fragrances, some components of fuel oils) contaminants, with the exception of certain types of semi-volatiles (i.e., some pesticides and plasticizers).

A volatile compound is defined chemically as one with a relatively low boiling point. That is, a volatile compound “evaporates” readily into the air. Whereas, a non-volatile compound evaporates much more slowly or not at all. A semi-volatile compound falls in between. Thus, due to the historical focus on VOCs, the full picture of exposure and health risk from contaminated drinking water may not have been adequately determined. With the emergence of more sensitive analytical capabilities for non- and semi-volatile organic contaminants, a more complete assessment of this additional contamination, if and where it exists, can be made, and appropriate steps can be taken to protect public health.

This study was able to address the potential detection of hundreds of chemicals because the instrumentation was set up to screen for tentatively identified compounds (TICs). A TIC is a compound that can be seen by the analytical testing method, but its identity and concentration cannot be confirmed without further analytical investigation. An analogy is when a photograph is taken of a subject. The picture also captures the information in the background, and often this information is fuzzy, but the focus of the picture is the subject. The subject (i.e., target item) is clear, but the background components (i.e., the tentatively identified items), while captured in the picture, are fuzzy.

There were three related objectives to this multi-year project.

1. Tentatively identify and possibly quantify chemicals present in raw and treated water samples collected from water supply systems impacted by hazardous waste sites.
2. In instances where chemicals are present in the raw water, determine if existing water treatment is effective at removing them.
3. Characterize the types of unregulated compounds present in water samples due to sampling and laboratory contamination.