PP 11: Water Pollution

History- water contamination

• 1880s: water caused disease  

• 1920s-30s: BPA, PCBs, and DDT released  

• 1940s: Sewage control, fluorination 

• 1960s: Silent spring, book about silent periods where you wouldn’t hear birds. birds were dying from DDT. Used it on bugs, and birds ate bugs 

• 1980s: Endocrine disruptors 

• 1990s: pharmaceuticals 

• 2000s: microplastics 

Health effects: Great Lakes Chronology 

• Theo’s work, wrote Our stolen future 

• 1950s Erie: Major eutrophication; algal blooms; hypoxia  

• 1960s Michigan: mink industry crashes 

• 1963 Michigan: herring gulls- reproductive failures  

• 1968 Ontario and Huron: High Hg (mercury) in sediments  

• 1970 Eria, Ontario: some commercial fisheries close- Hg 

• 1971 Ontario: Herring gulls- chicks die/crossed bills 

• 1978 Love canal: health emergency 1030 homes evacuated 

• 1988 Ontario: intersex fish (white perch) 

Exposure chronology

• 1920s-30s: BPA, PCBs, and DDT released. Chlorine industry expanding 

• WWII-1940s: first wide-scale exposure to antrophogenic chemicals  

• 1940s-50s: first generation exposed postnatally  

• 1950s-70s: first generation born that was exposed in the womb 

• 1970s-90s: first generation that was exposed in the womb reached reproductive age 

• 1980s-present: second generation born that was exposed in the womb. production volume and exposure still increasing  

• a lot of endocrine disruptors making things skip generations, etc. breast cancer  

toxins and other health hazards

• Intensive agriculture, cities, industry: all of these produce wastewater faster than nature can process it  

• out of site- out of mind 

• dilution is the solution to pollution 

• Ironically, historically the technology to speed up access to water and remove wastes has made water pollution worse 

• with endocrine disruptors, even with a small exposure, if i hits a receptor its problematic 

• flushed toilet is one of the highest water pollution device  

General zones and sources of water pollution

-General Zones 

• surface water 

• ground water  

-general sources  

• non-point sources  

  • non-point is run off, when its not coming from an actual tube or pipe 

-point sources 

• point source= landfills, septic systems, leaking spots, you can actually point to where its coming from 

Goundwater sources

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water pollution: point sources

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Muskegon

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Toxins and other health hazards (directly toxin or bioconcentrated, esp in fat tissue): organic chemicals

• Petroleum products and their derivates  

• pesticides and herbicides  

• Pharmaceuticals (including endocrine disrupters) other indivudal and domestic materials 

• when it says organic, it has a carbon 

• in the pic, those are all organic pollutants because of the carbon rings

Toxins and other health hazards (directly toxin or bioconcentrated, esp in fat tissue): inorganic chemicals

-Heavy metals 

• lead: paint, gasoline (both an organic and inorganic pollutant), plumbing, industry  

• mercury: coal burning, mining 

• Cadmium: metal industry, plumbing 

• Copper: pesticide, plumbing 

-Strong acids and bases 

-other industrial and domestic materials 

-salts, esp. road salt 

Radioisotopes

• Esp. Uranium, cesium, iodine, thorium, radon, tritium, ¹⁴C, etc.  

• from mining, weapons testing, nuclear power, research, medical  

Infectious organisms

Viruses, bacteria, protist, and other parasites 

Algal toxins

• includes neurotoxins, hepatotoxins, and dermatoxins 

• esp. many species of bluegreens (cyanotoxins) and some dinoflagellates 

Contaminants of emerging concern

-Pharmaceuticals 

• antibiotics, prescription, NSAIDs, OTCs 

-Personal care products (PCPs) 

• detergents, shampoo 

-Consumer products  

• fire retardants, plasticizers, DEET 

• Nutriceuticals: vitamins, health food suplements  

-Agriceuticals 

• Bioengineered foods (Genetically modified crops) 

-Nanomaterials 

• things that are small enough to cross the cell membrane 

• supposedly inert, but no monitoring yet 

-Microplastics 

• transfer of contaminants 

Once in the environment…

A. percentage of fish with male germ cells that had femalelike ovarian cavities (i.e., feminized males) in each treatment group 

B. mean whole-body VTG concentrations (n=3-; mixed sex) for all treatment groups. Error bars are SEM. Significantly different from control: P< 0.05, #p<0.001 

Mounting evidence for ecological effects

• Trenblone: irreversible fish masculinization (Morthorst et al., 2010) 

• Sulfamethoxazole: decreased denitification rates in abcteria (Underwood et al., 2011) 

• Triclosan: disrupts thyroid hormine- associated gene expression in frogs (Veldoen et al., 2006; Kloas et al 2024) 

• Fexofenadine: behavioral changes in damselfly larvae (Jonsson et al., 2014) 

• less is known about envrionmental efects from exposure to complex mixtures of CECs 

• DONT have to know these, just examples 

Ecosystem disrupters

• Plant nutrients (-> eutrophication) 

  • P 

  • N

• Oxygen-demanding wastes  

  • organic matter- sewage, industry (esp. food, paper) 

  • very high biological oxygen demand (BOD) 

• Sediment 

• thermal  

  • Heated water from industrial cooling systems  

  • Global warming 

• acid precipitation from air pollution 

  • from fossil fuel combustion:  

    • SO₂ -> H₂SO₄ (esp. from coal)   CO₂ -> H₂CO₃ 

    • NO₂ -> HNO₃ (esp. from gasoline) 

  • Acidifies soft water; kills or impairs much of biota 

  • in calcareous watersheds, the pH is buffered to some extent 

  • Bicarb export by Mississippi R. has risen 60% since 1950s 

• exotic species introduction  

  • some ”accidental”; e.g. from ship ballast water- most current Great Lakes area exotics: 

    • zebra mussel 

    • Spiny water flea 

    • round goby 

    • Ruffe etc. 

  • after opening of the Welland Canal 

    • sea lamprey  

  • ornamentals or misguided bio pest control  

    • water hyacinth 

    • purple loosestrife 

    • asian grass carp, etc 

Ecosystem complexity: Lake 1

- Hg binds to anything organic, so it binds to algae 

- the daphnia eat the algae 

- The fish eats that algae and now has mercery  

Ecosystem complexity: Lake 2

- only a little bit of algae in this lake 

- because of this, a small number of daphnia  

- fish comes by and eats the zooplankton, it has a much higher concentration of Hg 

- the same amount of Hg was spilled into both lakes, but because there was less organic nutrients for the Hg to bind to, it was more concentrated, so this fish has much more Hg 

Water pollution rates are strongly correlated with water use rates

• 80-90% of freshwater used becomes waste water 

• Example: reserve mining Co., Duluth, for many decades has washed 70,000 tons per day of taconite tailings (mining waste, high in heavy metals and acid) directly into lake superior  

General data for US

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Approaches for pollution control

• Input focus  

• output focus 

Input approaches

-Industry 

• Enforce and strengthen restrictions 

• use and improve technology for recovery and recycling of waste chemiclas; other treatment procedures 

• upgrade storage tanks, pipes, transportation reliability 

• Reduce need for heavy technology, esp. Chemcially intensive ones  

• use cooling towers and lagoons 

-Agriculture 

• shift to sustainable organic no-till farming techniques 

• return to livestock grazing rather than feed lots 

-Domestic 

• water conserving practices 

• reduce or eliminate use of chemicals in home and lawn 

Municipal

-Primary 

• 30% of solids and 70% of dissolved waste remains in effluent 

  • most toxins remain 

  • solid sludge becomes a solid waste problem; incineration or land fill   -> air or subsequent water pollution 

  • have moved away from this in the US. If anything, primary would be in rural areas 

  • 10% of US cities have primaries 

  • sewage sludge contains pathogens 

-Secondary 

• bacterial decomposition of organic matter in activated sludge 

  • removes 90% of biological oxygen demand 

    • Remaining: 10% of BOD, 50-70% of P&N, >30% of toxins  

    • solid sludge remains a problem 

• Disinfection of effluent water with chlorine 

• 70-80% of US cities have this 

-Tertiary  

• after secondary: specialized physical, chemical, and/or biological treatments 

  • Precipitation by alum, FeCl3, etc.  

  • Activated charcoal 

  • Electrodialysis 

  • Artificial wetlands 

• These remove most N, P, and toxins etc.; water is of very high quality 

• Can be expensive, require extra space, etc., but the technology is rapidly growing 

• 15% of US cities 

-Can’t have a higher level without the lower levels. If they do secondary, they also have to do primary ! test question 

-! test question What is the product that they all have to deal with? Sludge 

Reclamation/remediation (cleaning) 

-Soil and groundwater: extremely expensive to clean groundwater 

• Superfund program: identified the most polluted sites in the nation 

• Example- IBM-Dayton site: 

  • 1970s: 100s gallons of chlorinated organics dumped  

  • 1978: groundwater had 6,100 ppb perchloroethylene 

  • 1978-84: 300Mgal/min pumped out to remove the pollutant; temporarily reduced conc. to 100 ppb 

  • 1988: concentrations had risen back to 12,500 ppm 

• “brownfield” sites- sites that have contamination in them

-Lakes 

• Toxic pollution 

  • Assuming the effluent source has ceased, the remaining contamination is usually in the sediments; options include 

    • Dredge and remove sediments- this can resuspend pollution 

    • Leave alone- doesnt suspend pollution, but it may resuspend on its own 

-Eutrophication 

• Algal and macrophyte control 

  • Chemical  

  • Harvesting (macrophytes)- by hand or machine 

  • Biological control 

Hypolimnetic anoxia

-Water column aeration 

• bubbling air from the bottom of the water foutain 

• problem: redistrubutes nutrients. You’re constantly pulling up the nutrients. But if you dont have a bunch of nutrients in the sediment at the bottom, this is a good method 

-Hypolimnetic aeration 

• Allows the water to remain stratified 

• removed the problem of preventing turnover, and you won’t get all the nutrients from the sediment 

-Hypolimnetic sidestream pumping 

• comes in at the edge 

Cuyahoga

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General outlook for water pollution: progress

• Some significant progress in preventing or mitigating water pollution since 1972, resulting from several fairly strong federal laws including the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, Forest Practices Act, etc.  

• Improvements greatest in sewage treatment, drinking water, and severely polluted systems such as the Cuyahoga River, and Lake Erie 

• GLRI has increased attention and funding to these areas 

General outlook for water pollution: Limitations

• The primary focus has been on the more easily controlled point sources; non-point sources have not been adequately addressed and continue or are worse than ever 

• The clear water act did not include research priorities, and funding for pollution research continues to decline  

• Limited funding and little remediation has occurred in AOCs even with “remediation action plans” written for them 

• The environmental protection agency has been highly political, and appointed directions in conservative administrations have been willing to relax the enforcement of existing regulations  

• The clean water act amendments of 1995 (H.R. 961) reversed many of the original protections by providing waivers to industries, reducing protection and treatment measures, relaxing rules, etc 

• Under current standards, > 1/3 of US freshwater ecosystems do not meet the standards (it would be 2/3 if more appropriately stringent standards existed) 

General outlook for water pollution: Needed

• Better national and global consensus on the importance of our freshwater resources  

• More research on causes, consequences, and correctives  

• Better leadership 

• More cooperation and political will to develop the correct mix of laws, regulations, and incentives  

Reversal of eutrophication

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