6. You suspect that there is water contamination in the site your engineering co
ID: 116264 • Letter: 6
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6. You suspect that there is water contamination in the site your engineering company is located. Your team decides to submit the water sample to be analyzed. Results are as follows: Actual values Parameters Odor Color (color units) pH Temperature (°C) COD (mg/L) P (mg/L) N (mg/L) Microcystin (ppb) EPA standards 3 threshold odor number 30 threshold odor number 15 6.5-8.5 NIA NIA recommended 20 0.05 10 N/A recommended 1 150 28-30 600-1000 50 15 200 a) What is/are the contaminants? b) What is the source of the contaminant? c) What are the consequences of this problem to the water bodies and the community? d) What is the best treatment to remove the contaminant? If there is none, how can you prevent it?Explanation / Answer
a)The Safe Drinking Water Act defines the term "contaminant" as meaning any physical, chemical, biological, or radiological substance or matter in water. Therefore, the law defines "contaminant" very broadly as being anything other than water molecules. Drinking water may reasonably be expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminants. Some drinking water contaminants may be harmful if consumed at certain levels in drinking water while others may be harmless. The presence of contaminants does not necessarily indicate that the water poses a health risk.
Here all the parameters are excess with reference to the EPA standards, so they can be referred to as contaminants.
b)Sources of Water Contamination : Water contamination comes from three primary sources:
1. Rainwater: It is usually safe to drink, but rainwater has become increasingly contaminated due to air pollution in various areas of the world.
2. Surface water: Storm water runoff can pollute rivers, streams and lakes, and much of the contamination comes from agriculture and industry.
3. Groundwater: Water from underground aquifers is usually safe to drink, but over the past few years contamination has increased. Water that is deep underground is more protected from many types of contamination. Geology and soil makeup also affect water quality. Groundwater may be contaminated by naturally occurring elements like arsenic, selenium or boron.
There are a number of threats to drinking water: Improperly disposed of chemicals, animal wastes, pesticides, human wastes, wastes injected deep underground and naturally occurring substances all can contaminate drinking water. Likewise, drinking water that is not properly treated or disinfected, or that travels through an improperly maintained distribution system, also may pose a health risk.
c)Consequences of these-
The effects of water pollution are varied and depend on what chemicals are dumped and in which locations.
1.Death of aquatic (water) animals
The main problem caused by water pollution is that it kills organisms that depend on these water bodies. Dead fish, crabs, birds and sea gulls, dolphins, and many other animals often wind up on beaches, killed by pollutants in their habitat (living environment).
2.Disruption of food-chains
Pollution disrupts the natural food chain as well. Pollutants such as lead and cadmium are eaten by tiny animals. Later, these animals are consumed by fish and shellfish, and the food chain continues to be disrupted at all higher levels.
3.Diseases
Eventually, humans are affected by this process as well. People can get diseases such as hepatitis by eating seafood that has been poisoned. In many poor nations, there is always outbreak of cholera and diseases as a result of poor drinking water treatment from contaminated waters.
4.Destruction of ecosystems
Ecosystems (the interaction of living things in a place, depending on each other for life) can be severely changed or destroyed by water pollution. Many areas are now being affected by careless human pollution, and this pollution is coming back to hurt humans in many ways.
d)The best treatments to remove the contaminants from water are:
1.Distillation processes like solar distillation water treatment, multi stage flash distillation water treatment etc.
2.Reverse osmosis 3.Oxidative electrochemical treatment 4.Removing trace particles with selective adsorber
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