Within months, water utilities across the United States will gain access to a new federal database designed to match them with PFAS cleanup technologies, vendors, and funding sources.
The tool, called the Break the Bond Navigator, sits at the heart of a broader initiative that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled on October 26, 2026, at an event in Commerce City, Colorado.
The initiative, formally titled the PFAS Technology, Evaluation, Coordination, and Harmonization strategy, or PFAS TECH, is the first to span the entire agency rather than operating within a single programme or office.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, are synthetic chemicals that persist in the environment and have been linked to serious health concerns, prompting growing regulatory pressure on federal and local authorities to accelerate cleanup.
EPA has structured its new strategy around three interconnected goals: advancing research and development, demonstrating viable approaches through pilot-scale projects, and converting those results into actions communities can realistically implement.
The pilot programme is among the most concrete elements of the strategy, targeting drinking water systems, wastewater treatment plants, military facilities, and Superfund sites as testing grounds.
EPA said those projects are intended to assess how treatment and destruction methods perform outside laboratory conditions, lower technical risk for communities considering adoption, and identify which approaches can be scaled up effectively.
Funding for new research into PFAS destruction will flow through EPA’s Science to Achieve Results grant programme, known as STAR, as well as through Small Business Innovation Research programmes, giving smaller companies a route into the market.
Money from existing federal infrastructure legislation has also been directed toward PFAS treatment investment, with particular emphasis on serving small and rural systems that often lack the resources to tackle contamination independently.
The agency has been explicit that no single actor can solve the PFAS problem, and the strategy document states that success “is cultivating partnerships across federal agencies, states, local officials, industry, associations, technical assistance providers, and other stakeholders to unleash research and development, conduct pilot projects, and provide practical actions that are grounded in real-world experience.”
Alongside federal agencies, the strategy is designed to draw in state governments, local leaders, and private sector participants to share data, co-fund projects, and coordinate on technology evaluation.
EPA acknowledged that scaling new innovations to community-level needs requires testing under real-world conditions rather than controlled settings, a principle that shaped the selection of pilot site categories.
The Break the Bond Navigator database is expected to become available within the next few months, giving utilities a practical starting point as the wider strategy moves from announcement into implementation.