Company: AWK
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001410636-25-000022
Chunk: 41

Company: American Water Works Company, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 41
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 to anticipate and to accommodate its future compliance requirements. The Company also frequently engages with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other state environmental agencies, and national and international water research foundations. The Company believes that continued R&D activities are critical for providing safe, clean, reliable and affordable services, as well as maintaining its leadership position in the industry, which provides the Company with a competitive advantage as it seeks business and operational growth.

Contaminants of Emerging Concern

Contaminants of emerging concern include numerous chemicals such as PFAS, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotic resistant bacteria, antibiotic resistant genes, endocrine disrupting compounds, microplastics and industrial chemicals, as well as certain naturally occurring microbes, such as bacteria, viruses and parasites, which may be detected in drinking water supplies, for which the risk to the public’s health is not fully understood and/or has not been assessed. Technological advances have only recently made it possible to detect many of these contaminants at trace levels. The ability to detect contaminants at trace levels contributes to setting improved water quality goals.

The Chemicals Abstract Service Registry contains over 219 million registered chemicals, with an estimated 1,400 species of disease-causing microbes that can affect humans. The Company is continually investigating new substances and contaminants, employing a team of scientists, engineers and public health professionals to identify threats to its water supply, to act on emerging regulations and new health advisories, and to evaluate the benefits of alternative or advanced treatment technologies. The Company utilizes water quality testing equipment and implements new and emerging technologies to help detect potential water supply contamination issues. Examples of the Company’s efforts include:

•monitoring impacts of environmental pathogen loads and removal through wastewater systems;

•characterizing factors that contribute to the formation of potentially carcinogenic disinfection by-products to define best practices for their mitigation;

•advancing the science on holistic management strategies to improve distribution system water quality further;

•using its research findings to communicate information to its customers regarding potential actions to limit occurrences of Legionella in their buildings; in this regard, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics indicate that water-associated disease from Legionella is on the rise, with exposure typically associated with customer-owned plumbing systems in large buildings;

•defining a framework to support management or possible future regulation of opportunistic pathogens;

•developing expanded monitoring methods for short-chain and fluorinated replacement PFAS;

•systematically investigating PFAS removal from a variety of water matrices using established and emerging treatment technologies; 

•leading a PFAS risk communication