Who We Meet Along the Way: Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper

Community Spotlight: Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper, Alabama

Cyclopure provides water testing and filtration for PFAS using DEXSORB®, often crossing paths with individuals and organizations who share our concerns about the safety of water. From these interactions, we created this blog series to highlight the work of folks who use our products to remediate PFAS contamination in their communities.

Second in our series is the Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper (CRK). The organization’s mission is to “protect and restore the ecological health of the Choctawhatchee River, its tributaries and the surrounding terrestrial systems that constitute the watershed.” 

In June 2022, the Waterkeeper Alliance began a PFAS monitoring project using Cyclopure’s Water Test Kit. Through this initiative, the CRK began its partnership with Cyclopure.

Following an Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) modification to Hazardous Waste Management at the Fort Novosel site in June 2024, CRK decided to perform additional surface water monitoring. In November of that year, a firefighting foam spill occurred at another airfield. The samples collected by CRK from that area showed PFAS between 150-200 ppt.

With CRK’s proactive and continued water testing, ADEM has requested their analysis data to create a monitoring plan for PFAS around Novosel. In our correspondence, Michael Mullen writes, “CRK believes that our efforts caused ADEM to act much sooner than would have happened otherwise.” As of late March, he confirmed that ADEM plans to start to monitor for PFAS on and around Ft. Novosel. 

What’s next for CRK? CRK is not finished tackling PFAS. They have plans to collect well water samples as part of an education and data collection initiative in areas near Ft. Novosel and landfills.

The organization’s immediate influence on PFAS reduction can be seen in ADEM’s plan to monitor for PFAS. Potentially, fish tissue will be monitored as well.

CRK’s PFAS-data collection has been highlighted in The Cost of Forever (2024), a documentary from the Southern Exposure Film Series. Cyclopure’s Water Test Kit has a feature in the film as well. You can watch it here.