Water pollution

1
Water pollution
2
Sources

• Air
• Mercury (hg), SO2, NOx, ammonia,
• Hg bio-accumulates in aquatic organisms
• Green house gasses
• Cause increased acidity in oceans
• Damaging corrals EXC,

3
Sources

• Excess nutrients from farms (fertilizer)
• Organic waste
• Toxic waste-industrial
• Sediments-construction/farming
• Heat/Cold- Dams and power plants.
• Coliform bacteria-human and animal waste.

4
Chemical Sources

• Industrial and agricultural sources
• Metals, organic, compounds, solvents, detergents,
  oil.
• Car and storm drain.
• 21 billion barrels of oil.
• Ballasts of ships.

5
Response

• 1969 Cuyahoga river caught on fire.
• 1972 Clean water act
• Established water quality standards
• 1992 79 met water quality standards
• 2002 94 meet standards
• Limited wetland loss
• Increased rivers clean enough for fishing and
  swimming.

6
Tests

• pH
• Hardness-concentrations of calcium magnesium
• DO-dissolved oxygen
• Turbidity-suspended particles

7
Water Treatment Plants
8
Waste water

• Water coming from humans
• Sewage / Shower

9
Waste water-physical treatment

• Filters remove suspended solids
• Rags other gross stuff is removed to land fill
• Settling tank-suspended solids settle out.-some
  times iooks like a pond
• Removes 60suspended solids-30 of organic waste.

10
Secondary Treatment-procedures

• Physical treatment-filtered through screens
• Sludge processor (or trickling screens) bacteria
  breaks down the waste.
• Sludge-bacteria and waste is removed broken down
  further and sold as fertilizer.
• It used to be dumped in toe oceans
• Large amounts of Methane are produced

11
Removed

• 97 of suspended solids,
• 97 organic waste,
• 70 of toxic metals
• 50nitrogen

12
Water returns to the streams

• Before returning water to streams it is
  chlorinated to kill any remaining cells.
• Grey water-water is used to water lawns rather
  than being returned to streams.

13
Solid waste

• Form land fills
• Many land fills in America are full
• Contaminate ground water

14
Solutions to solid waste

• Recycle
• Reuse
• Reduce

15
Land fills

• How to manage our trash

16
Composting

• Individual households convert food and husks back
  to soil.
• Involves a
• Pit
• Red Worms
• Several months
• Soil is generated

17
Recycling

• Closed loop- substances are used to build the
  same thing.
• Plastic milk bottle to new plastic milk bottle
• Open loop-the recycled material is converted into
  something new.
• Plastic milk bottle to synthetic wood decking.

18
Hazardous Waste

• Types
• Corrosive
• Ignitable
• Reactive
• Toxic
• Radioactive

19
Solutions

• Surface impoundment-shallow ponds where hazardous
  liquids evaporate
• Deep well. Hole is drilled in ground waste
  pumped down.
• Land fills-

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Types of radioactive waste

• High level-high levels of ionizing radiation.
• Low level

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EPA-categories

• Nuclear reactor waste-high
• Repossessing waste-high
• Weapons manufacture-high
• Uranium processing-high
• Research sites (gloves exc.)-low
• Radioactive natural materials-low
• Some (EPA) High level radioactive wastes may
  actually be low level waste.

22
Ways to deal with radioactive waste

• Holding tanks-in power plants power rods in a
  swimming pool.
• WIP-Waste isolation plant-
• in New Mexico-
• a giant hole in the salt beds
• several hundred feet down
• Stores nuclear weapons.
• Yucca Mountain-N
• Nevada
• Tunnel into a mountain

23
Superfund sites

• Toxic sites where the corporations or land owners
  must match federal dollars to clean up the waste.

24
Case studies

• Rocky flats-
• A nuclear processor plant.
• The ventilation system was contaminated.
• 1980s shut down
• cleaned up and
• now a wildlife preserve.
• Love canal-
• subdivision built on a toxic land fill-
• 1978 toxic drums where dug up in back yards
• Trees and plants died
• Fowl sludge was observed
• Children became sick-or burned by caustics
• The community was evacuated