PERKASIE, PA — Perkasie Regional Authority’s temporary PFAS treatment system has processed more than 200 million gallons of drinking water during its first year, allowing the utility to begin treatment a year before its first permanent facility is completed while preserving part of the interim investment for long-term use.
The granular activated carbon system was deployed in 2025 as Perkasie pursued permanent PFAS treatment facilities through a separate capital project. Sentinel Water Solutions supplied the temporary equipment.
The installation uses four DESOTEC Mobicon vessels, each pre-loaded with about 10,000 pounds of NSF-certified granular activated carbon. Sentinel also supplied an automated booster pump skid and pressure-control improvements needed to integrate the rental system with Perkasie’s existing infrastructure.
Rather than wait for design and construction of the permanent facility, the authority operated the temporary system in parallel with the capital project. That moved the utility’s PFAS treatment schedule forward by about a year.
Perkasie also plans to reuse the carbon from the temporary system as the foundation of its GAC reactivation pool, extending part of the interim treatment investment into the permanent program.
As carbon is removed from service, it can be reactivated and retained for future use, creating an inventory of authority-owned reactivated GAC that can ultimately be deployed at the permanent PFAS treatment facility.
The strategy is intended to reduce Perkasie’s reliance on virgin carbon while carrying treatment media purchased for the temporary installation into its longer-term operations.
“What makes this project exciting is that the temporary system wasn’t simply a bridge until the permanent plant was completed,” Sentinel Water Solutions President Andrew Strassner stated. “Now the carbon that helped expedite compliance can become part of the Authority’s long-term reactivation program.”
The approach builds on Sentinel’s partnership with DESOTEC for NSF-certified GAC reactivation and carbon inventory management. Sentinel indicated the temporary installation was designed from the outset with future carbon reactivation in mind.
For Perkasie, the project provides an example of how temporary treatment can operate alongside the design, permitting and construction of permanent PFAS infrastructure rather than functioning solely as a short-term installation.
“Reaching 200 million gallons is an important milestone, but the bigger success is that the interim solution is becoming part of the permanent solution,” Strassner stated.
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