Buried drinking water, storm water, and sanitary sewer pipes are crumbling across America. As their rates of failure increase and many others surpass their useful life, communities are racing to rapidly repair them. The sheer cost and invasiveness of replacing these assets has prompted the emergence of an outdoor polymer composite pipe manufacturing process called cured-in-place-pipe or CIPP. Use of this practice in recent years however has been associated with occupational injuries, at least 1 fatality, Clean Water Act violations, illnesses caused to workers and bystanders, as well as evacuation due to contaminated buildings including daycare centers, schools, and other sensitive populations. Hospitalizations of bystanders outside worksites due to exposures of the chemical waste released have been caused. The magnitude of air pollution released per CIPP project has also been identified as a problem prompting questions about whether the process requires Clean Air Act compliance. This presentation will describe new discoveries published in peer-reviewed journals identifying challenges and solutions to CIPP manufacturing, environmental pollution, hazardous materials, and public health. An overview of the CIPP practice will be first shared along with results of the Purdue toxicology, engineering and science teams, as well as work by EPA, OSHA, ATSDR, and NIOSH. Field and laboratory discoveries will highlight the opportunities material developers and engineers can take to lessen the chance of bystander and worker injuries, Clean Water Act, and Clean Air Act issues. Recent discoveries have involved the alteration of styrene-based resin formulations reducing pollution by nearly 50%, enabled municipalities to choose lower VOC emitting materials, explored the toxicological impacts of chemical exposure to workers and bystanders, the capture and proper disposal of the waste, and more. Expanded CIPP use is expected with Federal and state funding to municipalities nationwide.

New scientific discoveries have made reducing environmental, occupational, and public health risks for polymer composite sewer pipe repairs possible

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ACS Spring 2023

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