The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development (EPA) is funding a five-year, $2 million research project led by Malcolm Pirnie to develop a comprehensive Drinking Water Treatability Database (TDB). The database will house information regarding the effectiveness of nearly 30 treatment technologies for the removal of up to 250 regulated and emerging contaminants.

According to Pirnie vice-president Doug Owen, the TDB is a step forward in making environmental knowledge available to the public. “A centralized database that includes peer-reviewed information on the effectiveness of various treatment technologies for removing drinking water contaminants will enhance our profession's ability to improve drinking water quality and achieve regulatory compliance.”

This project recognizes water utilities' need for a single source of information on available technologies to make use of the best-fit, most cost-effective tools to ensure regulatory compliance. Under the direction of EPA's scientists in Cincinnati, Malcolm Pirnie will identify and develop data requirements to assure the TDB provides maximum benefit to the drinking water industry. This includes the review of thousands of sources of treatability data to determine the effectiveness of various technologies for the removal of priority and emerging contaminants. Research efforts are anticipated to begin immediately with the database being released to the public by the mid-2007.