Broken Arrow Municipal Authority Special Meeting – PFAS Study and FROG Ordinance Update – August 18, 2026
Broken Arrow Municipal Authority Special Meeting – PFAS Study and FROG Ordinance Update
On August 18, 2026, at 5:30 PM, the Broken Arrow Municipal Authority held a special meeting to discuss findings from the PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) study and proposed updates to the Fats, Rags, Oils, and Grease (FROG) ordinance. No public comments were received. The authority took no formal votes but directed staff to continue monitoring and to engage businesses prior to bringing the FROG ordinance to the city council.
Discussion Items
Presentation of PFAS Study Findings and Future Considerations
Tim Robbins, utilities staff, presented the results of a multi-year investigation into PFAS (specifically PFOS and PFOA) in Broken Arrow’s drinking water and wastewater systems. Key findings:
- Drinking water samples from the Vertigris River Water Treatment Plant are generally below the EPA’s new Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 4 ng/L for PFOS/PFOA. The plant currently does not require treatment modifications.
- Testing accuracy has improved since earlier UCMR5 sampling; staff now follows stringent protocols to avoid sample contamination (e.g., from makeup, sunscreen, or clothing).
- If future regulations demand treatment, the preferred option is granular activated carbon gravity filters at an estimated capital cost of $100 million, with recurring annual costs in the millions.
- Wastewater testing at the Lin Lane and Haikey plants showed varying PFAS levels (Lin Lane below 20 ng/g, Haikey around 60 ng/g in biosolids). The city is prepared for future biosolids regulations through planned compost facility upgrades.
- The study included leachate from the landfill (BFI) which showed high PFAS levels, confirming the need for source control.
- Staff is developing a PFAS roadmap for public education and will provide an executive summary of the 2,000-page final report to the authority.
Trustees asked about Grand River water quality (a potential future source), and staff confirmed they used worst-case scenario planning. No action was requested from the authority; the update was informational. Staff urged monitoring state legislation regarding biosolids to ensure science-based regulations.
Presentation of Fats, Rags, Oils, and Grease (FROG) Ordinance Update and Sewer System Protection
Brandy (utilities staff) presented proposed updates to the city’s grease ordinance, aimed at reducing sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs). Key points:
- From January 2023 to present, Broken Arrow experienced 160 SSOs; 104 (65%) were caused by FROG accumulation.
- The city has approximately 443 known grease interceptors at food service establishments. Staff identified 20+ establishments without interceptors, 62 with rotted or non-functional units, and many facilities that had gone years without servicing.
- Proposed ordinance changes include: requiring interceptors for qualifying new businesses, establishing a 25% capacity servicing rule, setting maximum service intervals, requiring documentation, and aligning grease concentration limits with neighboring communities (currently Broken Arrow’s limit is five times higher than Tulsa’s at the Haikey Creek treatment plant, a DEQ concern).
- Implementation timeline is proposed at one to one and a half years, with staff working directly with non-compliant businesses to establish compliance plans.
- Staff will present the ordinance to city council at the next meeting and will send explanatory letters and make personal contact with affected businesses.
Trustee Green asked about communication with residents; staff noted they already educate at farmers markets and via utility bills. Trustee Ford requested that businesses receive individual contact to avoid surprises and to explain requirements. Staff agreed to that approach.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes or resolutions were passed. The authority received the presentations as informational.
- Staff will provide an executive summary of the PFAS report and a PFAS roadmap to the authority.
- The FROG ordinance will be brought to the city council for consideration at the next meeting, with prior outreach to non-compliant businesses.
- The meeting adjourned on a unanimous voice vote (Pickel, Green, Ford, Parks, Wimpee – all yes).
Meeting Transcript
Authority meaning to order roll call. Pickle. Here. Green. Ford. Here. Parks. Here. Wimpy. Here. Item three is public hearings, appeals, presentations, recognitions, and awards. Item 3A is presentation of the PFOS study findings and future considerations for Broken Air's drinking water system. Tim Robbins. All right. Good evening, Chair. Vice Chair, Trustees, General Manager Mr. Spurgeon. Thank you so much for having me here this evening. Thank you so much for coming in and joining me on this. It is really exciting, and who's ready to talk about PFOS? Yeah. Because it is so excited. Looking for a hand up. So we came back to y'all. This is a continuation of our conversations over the past three years. I know we have been talking about this since 2024, and our staff has uh lived this project since we first heard about the new regulations coming in in 2024. And uh what we want to do is come back to you uh this evening and really talk holistically about what we're doing water, wastewater-wise on not only PFOS, but what we're doing as a whole for the wastewater stream. So trying to look at this thing holistically. Um so this evening, what we're gonna talk about in this uh special meeting. Uh we're gonna start off with talking about the PFOS uh and our study and where we're heading in both water and wastewater. And there's a lot of cross tie-in to the industrial pretreatment and fats, rags, oil, and greases that uh Brandy is gonna come up and speak with us about uh after this presentation on our next agenda item. And the crossover is really interesting because what we've done in the PFOS investigation is helped us to re uh re-look at our ordinances and our uh the ways that we do things in the industrial pretreatment side uh that'll be underneath those ordinances. So it was kind of a nice night to consolidate both of these uh as as items as they really tie together. So we're gonna try and be as enthusiastic as we can. We have a lot of information. Uh just be sure to to if you have a question, don't don't feel don't feel like you need to wait to the end. Just jump right in and I'll answer any questions as we go. There's a lot of content. Um, but uh it's gonna be uh a great thing for the future of Broken Arrow and how we've attacked this. So uh we're gonna go through about 15 minutes on each one of them and have some good questions. I also want to introduce our team in the back. So uh Rachel Camp is with HDR. Uh she helped us uh as a spearhead point to run this PFOS investigation, and HDR has been a fantastic partner in that with us. I also have uh our engineering construction team and our utilities team that really did a lot of this, the the brunt of this work. It has been an incredible process that we were able to do in-house, and that's something I always come back and talk with y'all about is how much I like to do in-house, where we can do it with internal staff, we can save the citizens' money, and we can learn through the whole process of how we're gonna get there with hands-on and know how to do it going forward. Instead of hiring a consultant to to come in and just do it for us and hand us a report that we have to figure out after the fact, right? So that is the key to how we've done all of this, is really inside. Um I'll also say we we've done this presentation. This is a little bit more of a presentation format, like we do at uh large conferences. So we've actually presented this uh in front of uh large conferences down in Texas Water, which is uh one of the second largest water conferences in the uh in in the nation, and we presented our IPP results down there, as well as here locally with OWEA and APWA.
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