You know, and I think the genesis of this thing, I think I was talking to Vijay, I was talking to 3M, and, you know, I think the idea was to sort of bring together, give folks a different perspective, on, you know, just what does it take to eliminate PFAS from the system, and what are the perspectives of, Montrose Environmental that, does the cleanup, but also obviously in, remediation efforts, over many, many years. And, it all came together. It's, very exciting. We have with us John Banovetz, of 3M. We have, Vijay Manthripragada. He's President and CEO of Montrose. I've known Vijay for many years. We have Steve Woodard, Chief Innovation Officer of Montrose. Is that, you know, we're gonna do a panel, and we're just gonna talk about PFAS as an issue, and, you know, what does it take to remediate PFAS? It's about, you know, what it takes to clean it up. So thank you for being here. As I said, this is a very unique and exciting event, and, obviously, Bruce, thank you for making sure this... Gentlemen, welcome. Really appreciate it. So, you know, so I guess, this question is for, maybe, Vijay and John. For us, could you quickly, just frame the issue for us and provide some historical context? Thank you. John, you want to go? Yeah, why don't you- go? Yeah, why don't you- Yeah, sure. So first, PFAS is this term that's been used, a wide range of different materials. These materials can be solids, liquids, or gases, so likely the refrigerant in your car is a PFAS material by definition, as a gas. There's solids that are part, plastics, seals, gaskets, that can be defined as a PFAS, and there's liquids, things like heat transfer liquids. And so you have this broad class of materials when someone says PFAS, what that actually means, and they're really critical to a lot of the things that happen in the world today. When we talk about the remediation, we're actually just gonna, it's really focused on a small subset of those materials, really just a handful, a handful of those materials. Primarily, you'll hear about PFOS or PFOA, which are two... Those are, those have stopped. Those aren't manufactured in the U.S. anymore. 3M stopped manufacturing those 25 years ago. So it's really about a remediation and a cleanup effort as of current processes with at least with those two materials, and so you have a lot that's out there, but really when you're talking about it, it's about really a small handful of chemical compounds and a very special class of those chemical compounds. Yes, I mean, totally agree, and John, you're the expert on this. Andrew, I think the, you know, obviously, they've had a lot of use, right? And as we think about our economic development since World War II, there's a lot about these molecules that isn't, these compounds, that isn't fully understood yet. And there is no panacea, right? John's exactly right. It's a very complex set of challenges. And if I may, I would just put into context kind of a lot of the historically, and I, when I say historically, I'm talking about kind of the last 10 years, there's been a desire to remove a lot of these compounds that have all these beneficial uses and that were purchased by all of us, right, from places where we did water. What's been really interesting as an outsider looking in, and a lot of the credit goes to innovators like Steve and John, is over the last 10 years, the solutions have been created that effectuated, and John's right, right, in a very specific way, effectively, and remove it, sustainably and at levels and thresholds that are even though they are considered low by many, achievable. And so the reason I give you that context is the historical dialogue and the discussions have been more around the why and can it be, right, is this something we can do? Compelling for me to watch the evolution of this, is this now feels like a discussion around how, right? The technology, the innovation has come through. There's a lot of really incredible opportunity to, to have a positive impact, and it become a policy, cost, time frame, dialogue. And so, that's been really compelling to watch, and I think the other, dynamic that I would just kind of highlight, Andrew, in the context of this discussion, is regulations have been in flux, and not just here in the United States, all over the world. What's regulated, how it's regulated, what the impact is, what thresholds you've got to treat at, has all been changing. And one of the things that I hope we get a chance to talk about with Steve and John, that the two of them drove, we can, tier up, dial up or dial back to technology and achieve those goals, in a pretty effective way. And so again, I find that really compelling, and hopefully we'll have a chance to talk through that. For John and Steve, you know, there's this, these things are called forever chemicals, which sort of implies that they can't be removed from the environment. Sort of both of you are practitioners of removing PFAS from the environment. Can you comment on this? You know, what does it take, Steve, John, what does it take to remove these chemicals from the environment? Yeah, it's the technology exists today to do it. So if you're thinking about, again, a lot of the discussions around these two compounds, PFOS, PFOA, you can remove those with very simple technologies today, a granulated activated carbon. About detection, just a comment around that, that's around part per trillion levels. So you know, I can quote a part per trillion, 10 part per trillion or something, but if you... You have to actually understand what that means. That's it's an incredible technical challenge because that's 3,000 years.... so if you did that out in time, so think about 32,000 years, and we're pulling out individual seconds in that time frame, essentially, in what we're doing in this, in the technology that we have. So, but you can treat them. There's different set of materials. It's very important you have a broad set of technologies and capability in order to do it, but you can pull these out. It does take time, money, resources to do it, but it can be done. They're called forever chemicals because they're recalcitrant, and they tend to persist in nature, and that's because they have hydrogen-fluorine bonds, and this hydrogen-fluorine bond is one of the... But as John points out, they're not forever anymore. We've developed multiple technologies that can remove them from the environment, and often the key is going upstream to the source. A good example would be a wastewater treatment plant. Upgrading a wastewater treatment plant so that now it incorporates activated carbon or ion exchange resin, and now not only is it removing PFAS, PFAS from entering the environment, which is even better. So maybe, you know, can you discuss the journey from setting goals, actions, partnerships formed between 3M and Montrose of removing a range of PFAS compounds from Yeah ... water from, you know, a range of water sources, maybe, John? Yeah, yeah. So, talk a little bit about our history and our, the connection. So in late 2020, started our journey around this work, and it was part of a larger sustainability strategy for 3M. So we were defining our sustainability strategy around carbon neutrality, reduction of water, water quality, reducing plastics, and this became part of a science-based company, kind of a company full of engineers. We defined the kind of the math and the path for those different goals. So we knew what the objective was, and we understood what it was, 90% of that path, and we talked about it in that terms, the math and the path. We took our PowerPoint slides and made them Excel, so to speak, of how we actually work through this. So then you start digging into it about how you're gonna and how you do that, and you start thinking about the technologies, and you lay that out, and it quickly becomes you need partners in order to do that. You have to partner with the government regulators, but more importantly, from a technology, you have to partner with someone like Montrose. And for us, innovation and science, and so we're looking for partners in the same vein in order to interact with. And so we quickly were able to find a partnership with Montrose and have been very thankful for our sustainability goals, particularly around this water quality goal that we have. Steve, question for you. What are the unique aspects of the PFAS treatment systems that 3M has built, and how do they differ, both from technology and scale perspective? Yeah, 3M selected our proprietary regenerable ion exchange resin treatment technology. Ion exchange resin beads are little millimeter in diameter, and what we do is we take vessels, and we fill them with these little plastic beads, contaminated water in, clean water out. These beads have some really special engineered properties that gives them a high affinity for PFAS, and they remove PFAS from the water, the exchange resin system. When the capacity is used up, that resin is thrown away, and new resin is brought in. An important part of ECT2's patented, instead of throwing it away and replacing it, we can regenerate it in place. So we pass a regenerant solution through the vessel. It essentially washes the media, washes the PFAS. Difficult to do because there's a very... It's a strong bond between the PFAS and the media. But we're able to do that, and so we can reuse that ion exchange resin over and over again. Another thing we've developed is the ability to take that spent regenerant solution and reclaim and reuse that. Using technologies like distillate, we can reclaim and reuse that as well. So basically, it's a series of concentration steps. This technology that we're deploying with 3M, it's concentrate, concentrate, concentrate, and you end up highly concentrated PFAS. And so for the past few years, we've been working collaboratively with John and with 3M to improve this patented treatment technology to their waste. Now, another way that 3M systems are different is that most of the—the vast majority of the PFAS treatment systems out there are focused on PFOS and PFOA. There's a few that are focusing on the short chains, and 3M is really leading the way, and they're not just removing the long chains, they're removing the short chains and the ultra-short chains. So these are the toughest PFAS compounds to remove. So one of the ways these systems are different is that to do that, you have to make the systems larger and more sophisticated. Millions of gallons a day being treated, and you end up with the largest, most sophisticated PFAS systems in the world. So the question is, so to regenerate, does that make it a sustainable solution, or do you view it as a sustainable solution? Yes, very much so. And I'll give you an example. We are installing together with ECT2 and Montrose, produce roughly 1/500th the amount of waste that would be produced by activated carbon system. Again, the way we do that is by sustainably- ...taking this to remove the PFAS and regenerating it and reusing it over and over again, and the same with the regenerant solution. So think of it as maple syrup. That's high volume and a very dilute solution, and we're concentrating till it's a very, very concentrated product. Now, that could be a liquid waste, depending on we deal with it. But what that does is it enables us to safely and responsibly either dispose of that waste concentrate or, better yet, destroy that. And, you know, that's how we remove PFAS from the environment, and better yet, it's how we prevent PFAS from getting into the environment in the first place. Just don't put it on your pancakes. Yeah, please. I have a good story about dipping my hand to PFAS, which I can tell you. But, yeah. So, John, you sort of talked about sustainability at 3M. So is the fact that it is important to you? Does it have an economic benefit? Yeah. How do you think about it? It's very important it's a sustainable solution. And, and both sustainability, the way Steve just described it in terms of reuse and regeneration, but also sustainable and think about, and Vijay kinda mentioned, the state of the regulations and where things are going. You're getting, you know, literally product bans in the whole class of different PFAS. You're getting things of reporting requirements if you're manufacturing - what - how you're using it. But as a manufacturer or as a, as a remediator, if you want, you're also having regulations that are driving essentially to zero, as I mentioned, part per trillion sorts of levels in the past. And so we're looking for a solution that not only is it we, we know will be effective over time, and we can use it over time. The economics, obviously, we're doing it because this is the most economic view. I mean, it does take time, money, and resources in order to do this, but well, it's for us. I mean, we wanna be a leader in sustainability. It's important for us, for our communities, our customers, our employees, and how we lead in sustainability. It's also, you know, one of the ones we're exiting manufacturing of PFAS by the end of 2025, so we'll... It's not a business decision. This is almost fundamentally and very quickly will become about how we treat and the footprint of our factories and our facilities and how we remediate it. I mean, we're out of the PFAS business by the end of 2025 and manufacturing the materials. So this isn't an economics of production or ongoing business operations for 3M. It's about how are we our footprint and sustainability footprint happening in our communities and in our factories, so. Maybe, you know, John, it does sound like 3M has been quite active and proactive in addressing PFAS. Part of the issue is that you don't really have this regulatory framework yet, but there has been some recent activity on the regulatory front regarding PFAS. Maybe, Vijay, question for you: Could you outline this in new guidelines that have recently emerged concerning PFAS? Because it's been a moving target. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And just to... And I think the first part of that question, I think, is tied into what John and Steve were just talking about active. And I think as it relates to where the regulations have gone and what the technology now enables, I think let me frame it kind of in both contexts. So we work a lot with many of the Fortune 500 companies. And as a result, we have the privilege and pleasure of spending time with the management teams of a lot of these companies. And I would say, and this is my personal view, John and the 3M team are some of the most forward-leaning and stewardship-oriented management teams that we've met. And I'm not just saying that. I'll reflect on kind of the first meeting that we had, where John spent, I think, a substantial recollection is different, of the meeting, speaking about 3M's commitment to water sustainability, stewardship, reducing the footprint, reducing waste. And the reason that's important in the context of where regulations have gone and what we've created, if you go back and, and look at why that was important to us and where the questions and challenges came up, when the ECT2, Montrose, and 3M teams were thinking about how to solve these problems, sustainability weighed in heavily, right? Innovation and that technology development is that the, the solution delivers a lot less waste, as Steve talked about, uses a lot less media, has a smaller footprint, uses less energies, is arguably safer for workers. And, and it's... Either John or Steve alluded to this, it's able to remove compounds to levels that are way ahead of regulation. And so I just wanna make sure that that point is clear. The question, Andrew, is around regulation, but a lot of the innovation was driven decisions less than what the regulatory mandates were. And the reason that matters is now fast-forward to today, and what we knew four years ago and what we know now are quite materially different in terms of how the regulations. So if you think about the recent drinking water limits in the United States or what's happened in Europe, where they're regulating molecules like PFBA, the technology, because it was developed focusing on stewardship goals, can be dialed up and is very effective at removing them. Because it generates a lot less waste if certain molecules get designated as CERCLA hazardous substances, like they have here in the U.S. with the two that John referenced. Because you're able to dispose of. You have less. You have optionality for potential destruction is higher. And so what's been really compelling for us in this partnership is that the joint innovation is now enabling the application of the Montrose and 3M are working on, and I'll give you a kind of two discrete examples. There was a situation that we were involved in a couple of months ago, in the Western United States, where our client and the regulators were quite worried about what the implication of that was gonna be, and it wasn't quite clear exactly what the magnitude was and what was gonna get accepted. And what we were all surprised by: what the current limits are. The regulatory agency said they want all 40 compounds that are currently measurable under Method 1633 to be brought down to non-detect levels. So this is to non-detect levels. Before, they would allow us to discharge it. And what's really cool is this community benefited from the innovations that John and Steve and their teams developed. We achieved it. So we were able to effectively dial up, to my earlier point. We were able to remove all 40 compounds to non-detect levels. The water gets discharged, and we were able to help the community and help our client, because of the innovation that came out of this, right? As another example, we're working with an Ag department that's really worried about some of these really hard-to-remove short chains like PFBA, and the technology is applicable there as well. And that's a large part of why we're getting pulled into the European market to help address some of those issues, independent of what's happened with 3M, is the regulations have kinda shifted, Andrew, to your point, and to your question, at levels that were unexpected at very, very low thresholds. The Hazard Index, sorry, includes kind of four additional. You got the CERCLA designation, you've got RCRA designations that are potentially on the horizon. But what's amazing, and, and I just wanna make sure I hammer this point home, is because of the, the mindset that the innovation was future forward-looking, it's applicable to what's happening in the regulatory environment, and it's helpful to a broader subset of constituents and communities, which is kind of ultimately what the mission and stewardship is all about. Very comprehensive answer. Yeah. So maybe, given this regulatory push and availability of technology that can effectively manage, potentially can effectively manage even short-chain PFAS, what does this indicate in Montrose capacity, to handle future regulatory standards? Yeah. Do you want to... Yeah, you go ahead. Yeah, please. Um- Go ahead. Yeah. I'll follow. Yeah. You just said, I think, we're putting in the state-of-the-art technologies and capabilities, and so, we feel confident that we're able to address ahead of and be proactive in, in addressing these based on, again, based on the technique in place for our manufacturing sites, particularly here in the U.S. It was done under a view of, trying to anticipate or just understanding the trends and where things were going. It's one of those questions, I don't, I don't know how you get better than the best when you start putting it in place, so. Right. And I would add to that, one of the tremendous benefits of this technology is that if found, which they tend to do over time, it's not a question of using more media and creating more waste, it's a question of turning up the dial of how frequently you regenerate the resin and how frequently use that regenerant solution. So, that's state-of-the-art, and you know, 3M's not gonna benefit from this, but the collaboration will benefit the world because we plan this type of technology, we've already been deploying it as far across the globe as Australia. But you know, it... We're gonna benefit a lot of industries and governments, and then generally, the health and welfare of the people by being able to take the state-of-the-art technology and adjust it to and fine-tune it to solutions and objectives. And John, maybe a question for you. So what are the key takeaways you can share for perhaps other companies who are just now working to address? Probably started consulting them. It's a complex issue. There's a lot going on, and so I think if I were to sit down with any other company, I'd say: Yeah, you really have to understand the use of PFAS in your products and particularly people are using it. Like I said, PFAS, by definition, is a broad set of materials, and so you really have to understand where it sits and how you use it in your company. If not, then their exposure or not to PFAS in general, to the broad set of materials, and then especially in the supply chains. And then, as you're dealing with remediation or different parts, they're complex. Everything's almost unique. We're designing systems for 3M, which are incredibly high volume and low concentrations. That may or may not be the same for a wastewater treatment plant or a DoD. You need experts, and you need partners in order to be able to address your unique situation in that. And then, you know, my last would say it has to... Just building on that, it has to be a partner who are leading the edge, as well as discussions with government regulators, too, as to what the endpoint needs to be. I guess, the last question from me, you guys have been quite efficient. You know, look, you've demonstrated the capabilities, PFAS and complex water streams, so what are the next challenges for 3M and Montrose? You want me to go first, John, or you wanna go? Uh, uh- Yeah, go. I'll go first. So first is really deploying and scaling the technologies that we're putting into our facilities and then optimizing those. So there's a lot of work left to do- Yeah ... on how we deploy, implement, and optimize the systems, and so that's really our where we're going. I would say the other pieces are we're trying to advance the science around all of this as well, jokingly, as a consultant. So if there's not as a business practice, we're not interested necessarily in that technology and the use of technology and the science. So if there's things that we've learned, and again, they're all unique situations, so I don't know how applicable it may or may not be, but we're happy to share and talk about our experiences and our technology and our, what we've done as a company. And then step is actually how you deal with the concentrate, so like on-site destruction, what's the next level of technology? And that's actually where I'm looking forward to and anxious to continue the- Yeah, I can, and Steve, jump in for sure. Yeah, I think we have, as we kind of step back, Andrew, kind of two macro challenges or maybe even opportunities that have discussions, right? So every country is thinking about this a little differently. You know, as a, as an operating entity, you may operate in four or five different jurisdictions, and states all have different thresholds and levels, and so complex. And so whatever we create has to be applicable across many different needs and dynamics. And there is no one-size-fits-all, right? So totally agree with John's view, but navigating that's really more about Montrose specific issue. Folks don't know we exist, right? And I'll cite an example in Europe recently where we ran a pilot. The technology worked incredibly well. The results were much better than anything else, other technologies. And when we kind of went to talk about the results and us moving forward with doing more work for this specific entity that's got kind of, needs across, Northern Europe, the first comment was, "Right, we had no idea you existed. This is really great." And so we have kind of, I think, a broader awareness challenge, especially as ex-U.S., but even here in the United States. So one of the challenges for us is gonna be increasing awareness and talking about, I think this is an addressable, solvable set of opportunities, and the technology does exist. Now, it's just a question of how we go about doing it. So that's, and that's really on us to execute over the next couple of years. But look, we wouldn't be here on the stage if it wasn't for the fact that you connected the dots, right? And I think many communities have already benefited from it, and hopefully, more will. So thank you for that, Andrew. Agreed. Well- Thank you. Thank you. This is great. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thanks all. Thanks.