Water Pollution

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Water Pollution
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Distribution of Water Reservoirs
Oceans 97
Ice Caps and Glaciers 1.725
Atmosphere 0.01
Rivers, Lakes, and Inland Seas 0.141
Soil Moisture 0.0012
Ground Water 0.4 1.7
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World Water Supply
97.200 salt water in the oceans 02.014 ice
caps and glaciers 00.600 groundwater 00.009
surface water 00.005 soil moisture 00.001
atmospheric moisture
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Water Cycle

• Atm. -Ocean - Land
• Evap. - PPT - Runoff

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Water PollutionTwo major classifications

• Point Source

• Non-point Source

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• Point Sources
• Single large source
• Can localize it to one spot
• Industrial Plants
• - Sewage pipes

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Point Source - Example

• LUST - Leaky Underground Storage Tanks
• 22 of the 1.2 million UST are LUST

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• Non-point Sources
• Diffuse source or many smaller point sources
• Automobiles
• Fertilizer on fields

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Water Pollution Many Forms

• Disease In developing nations, 80 of diseases
  are water-related.
• Synthetic Organic Compounds
• Inorganic Compounds Mineral Substances such as
  Acids, etc.
• Radioactive substances
• Oxygen-demanding wastes
• Plant Nutrients
• Sediments
• Thermal Discharges

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Examples of Polluted Waters
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A very personal look at water

• What happens to your water before you drink it?
• What happens to your water after you dispose of
  it?
• Approximately 99 of Swedes are served by
  wastewater treatment plants, 86.5 of Germans,
  74 of Americans, and 57 of Canadians.

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What constitutes quality drinking water?

• Free of pollutants
• Tastes good
• Want Sodium Bicarbonate and Calcium Sulfate in
  same concentrations as found in saliva
• 10 oC
• As little chlorination as possible
• Calcium magnesium account for most water
  hardness, death rates (cardiovascular disease)
  higher in soft water areas than in hard water
  areas
• Copper needed to absorb metabolism iron, but
  gt1mg/liter makes water unpalatable
• Does taste correlate with presence of toxic
  compounds?

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Forms of Pollution Details

• Inorganic acids, salts, toxic metals
• One gram of lead in 20,000 liters of water makes
  it unfit for drinking. Lead is often found in
  the pipes of older homes
• What is the safe drinking water limit for
  arsenic? For lead? How much does UA water
  supply have?

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Forms of Pollution Details

• Organic sewage, pesticides, plastics, etc.
• One drop of oil can render up to 25 liters of
  water unfit for drinking
• One gram of 2,4 D can contaminate 10 million
  liters of drinking water!
• One gram of PCBs can make 1 billion liters of
  water unsuitable for freshwater aquatic life!

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Acid Precipitation When Air Pollution Becomes
Water Pollution
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Acid Rain Effects Aquatic Systems
When the pH drops below 6.0 species start to die
off. When one species dies, others that depend on
it may as well
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Acid Neutralization

• How does this work?
• Cation Exchange on clay minerals
• Role of chemical weathering...

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How does acid kill the fish?One way is
mobilizing metals

• When all base cations are striped from soils
• Acid now reacts with metals e.g. aluminum
• Normally aluminum is immobile
• below pH 5 - mobile aluminum
• Fish breath in the water
• Aluminum comes out of solution
• Clogs gills - suffocate

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More Examples Oxygen and Water

• Biochemical Oxygen Demand What does this mean?
• Anything in the water that bacteria can break
  down.
• Bacteria will use up oxygen in the water
• Other aerobic organisms will die

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Oxygen and Water

• What else can affect the amount of O2 in the
  water?
• Temperature
• Speed of water flow
• Roughness of surface
• over which water flows

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Stories about particular pollutant forms Oil

• Both Point and Nonpoint Sources
• Largest source of oil pollution is pipeline leaks
  and runoff
• 61 ocean oil pollution river urban runoff
• 30 intentional discharges from tankers
• 5 accidental spills
• from tankers

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Stories about particular pollutant forms
Detergents

• The nitrates in fertilizers promote excessive
  growth of algae and larger aquatic plants,
  causing offensive algae blooms and driving out
  sport fish.
• Phosphates are often thought to culprit,
  nitrogen is the limiting factor in most aquatic
  systems.

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Stories about particular pollutant forms
Sediments

• THE largest form of water pollution
• Erosion is source weve sped up rate of
  erosion, e.g. during urban construction can lose
  up to 43 tons of topsoil/acre/year
• Natural rates of erosion leads to aquatic
  succession

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Succession in Aquatic Habitats
Lake
Sediments Nutrients Accumulate
Oligotrophic
Eutrophic Low in nutrients
High in nutrients
Can sometimes see Methane gas bubbling up From
sediments process of decomposition
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Stories about particular pollutant forms
thermal pollution

• 26 of all water in U.S. is affected by this
• Up to a point of adding heated water, you can get
  thermal enrichment
• Adding more heat,
• you get
• thermal pollution

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We can also have cold water pollution
In many areas fish and Other river organisms
are Adapted to relatively warm water.
Building a dam results in very cold water
released Downstream killing organisms and
changing species
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A special case Groundwater

• What forms of pollution can affect groundwater?
• All of them except thermal pollution!
• Renewal time of groundwater is important
• Rivers 12-20 days
• Soil Moisture 280 days
• Groundwater 300 years

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Groundwater doesnt stay in one place
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Oil Well Drilling Groundwater
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Oil Drilling Protocols

• Well must be cased from surface to below
  freshwater zone
• Casing must also be for 150 feet above pay zone
• Logging apparatus must be retrieved

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Oil Drilling Protocols

• Drilling fluids must be disposed of properly
  e.g. no Midnight Haulers
• Any spills must be reported and cleaned
  immediately
• Area will be subject to remediation efforts

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Identifying Sources of Pollutants to the
Chesapeake Bay
We are going to do the same analysis that
scientists did in 1998 to determine what some of
the major sources of pollutants were to the
Chesapeake Bay
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