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GROUNDWATER RECHARGE AND CHEMICAL CONTAMINANTS: CHALLENGES IN COMMUNICATING THE CONNECTIONS AND COLLISIONS OF TWO DISPARATE WORLDS
Citation:
Daughton, C G. GROUNDWATER RECHARGE AND CHEMICAL CONTAMINANTS: CHALLENGES IN COMMUNICATING THE CONNECTIONS AND COLLISIONS OF TWO DISPARATE WORLDS. GROUNDWATER MONITORING AND REMEDIATION 24(2):127-138, (2004).
Impact/Purpose:
The research focused on in the subtasks is the development and application of state-of the-art technologies to meet the needs of the public, Office of Water, and ORD in the area of Water Quality. Located In the subtasks are the various research projects being performed in support of this Task and more in-depth coverage of each project. Briefly, each project's objective is stated below.
Subtask 1: To integrate state-of-the-art technologies (polar organic chemical integrative samplers, advanced solid-phase extraction methodologies with liquid chromatography/electrospray/mass spectrometry) and apply them to studying the sources and fate of a select list of PPCPs. Application and improvement of analytical methodologies that can detect non-volatile, polar, water-soluble pharmaceuticals in source waters at levels that could be environmentally significant (at concentrations less than parts per billion, ppb). IAG with USGS ends in FY05. APM 20 due in FY05.
Subtask 2: Coordination of interagency research and public outreach activities for PPCPs. Participate on NSTC Health and Environment subcommittee working group on PPCPs. Web site maintenance and expansion, invited technical presentations, invited articles for peer-reviewed journals, interviews for media, responding to public inquiries.
Subtask 3: To apply state-of-the-art environmental forensic techniques to the recognition and characterization of emerging pollutants in the aquatic environment. There is a need for high sensitivity and for a powerful method of structural characterization, advanced mass spectrometric and chromatographic techniques to be employed to meet the challenge of emerging pollutants, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products, agents of sabotage, and explosives. Ongoing efforts continue to identify previously unrecognized pollutants from a range of problematic samples having importance to regional and state contacts.
Subtask 4: To provide the Agency with a set of practical analytical methods for the selective and sensitive determination of selenium species (organic, inorganic, volatile and non volatile forms) in multiple media to accurately assess and if necessary control the risk of selenium exposure to organisms. This includes development of optimal extraction, digestion, separation and detection approaches.
Subtask 5: To develop and apply an analytical method that can extract and detect synthetic musks. The extent of exposure may be determined by measuring levels of synthetic musks from their potential source (communal sewage effluent). This subtask ends in FY05 with the deliverable of APM 21. Future applications to biosolids will be covered in subtask 6.
Subtask 6: Application, and improvement, of previously in-house developed sensitive, robust, and green, methodologies regarding the use of urobilin and sterols as a possible markers of sewage contamination.
Subtask 7: Adaptation and improvement of previously developed in-house methods, for PPCPs (e.g., antibiotics and musks) to solid materials (e.g. biosolids, sediments).
Subtask 8: Study of the presence of personal care products, incombustible organic compounds from the direct-piping of small engines exhaust in Lake Tahoe, and lake deposition of airborne pollutants from industrial activity
Description:
The existing knowledge base regarding the presence and significance of chemicals foreign to the subsurface environment is large and growing -the papers in this volume serving as recent testament. But complex questions with few answers surround the unknowns regarding the potential for environmental or human health effects from trace levels of xenobiotics in groundwater, especially groundwater augmented with treated wastewater. Public acceptance for direct or indirect groundwater recharge using treated municipal wastewater ( especially sewage) spans the spectrum from unquestioned embrace to outright rejection. In this article, I detour around the issues most commonly discussed for groundwater recharge and instead focus on some of the less-recognized issues- those that emanate from the mysteries created at the many literal and virtual interfaces involved with the subsurface world. My major objective is to catalyze discussion that advances our understanding of the barriers to public acceptance of wastewater reuse -with its ultimate culmination in direct reuse for drinking. I pose what could be a key question as to whether much of the public's frustration or ambivalence in its decision making process for accepting or rejecting water reuse (for various purposes including personal use) emanates from fundamental inaccuracies, misrepresentation, or oversimplification of what water 'is' and how it functions in the environment -just what exactly is the 'water cycle'. These questions suggest that perhaps it would behoove us to revisit some very elementary aspects of our science and how we convey it to the public.