[Improvement in the laboratory control over water quality group agricultural water supply systems].
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Measurements of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in wastewater can be used to understand the prevalence of COVID-19 cases within a community. Environmental conditions inclusive of physical-chemical water quality characteristics are known to impact wastewater SARS-CoV-2 signals, but they are rarely measured within the sewer infrastructure in areas upstream of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The objectives of this study were to report on measurements of environmental parameters [flow and physical-chemical water quality (water temperature, pH, specific conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity)] upstream of a WWTP and to evaluate whether the inclusion of these environmental parameters improves correlations between SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in wastewater, and COVID-19 prevalence in the sewershed community. Measurements of environmental parameters and SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater spanned different time scales (minutes, hours and weeks) and population scales (building, campus, community). For short time scales, water quality parameters did not improve correlations between SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and COVID-19 prevalence due to high variability of water quality and flows within the sewer system. When averaging data over weekly time scales, regressions showed that inclusion of pH improved correlations between RNA and COVID-19 prevalence. At the cluster scale, for the entire data set, the root mean square error decreased from 6.9 cases per week to 6.5 cases per week. At the community scale benefits were observed only for the delta wave with a decrease in root mean square error from 539 cases per week to 430 cases per week. The inclusion of pH improved correlations between wastewater SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 prevalence more frequently when evaluating the cluster sewershed scale (populations of a few thousand) in comparison to the community scale (populations of several 100,000). Given the simplicity of measuring pH and other physical-chemical water quality parameters, their inclusion should be considered as part of wastewater-based epidemiology programs.
Drinking-water must be free of pathogenic organisms; this challenge refers to pathogenic viruses too. In order to control virological aspects of water quality realistic and practicable monitoring procedures, esp. practical microbial assays, must be performed. They should include in all cases standard plate counts and counts of total or faecal coliform bacteria. Counts of coliphages in combination with standard plate counts and counts of coliform bacteria offer a practical and reliable indicator system for evaluating the virological safety of treated drinking-water supplies in the case of drinking-water reclaimed from contaminated raw water, esp. surface water.
The quality of water is more and more important in the polluted world of today. The nephrologist is with his patients a great consumer of water; water for dialysis should be of the highest quality as each maintenance dialysis patient uses up to 150 liters 3 times per week for years, in direct contact with his blood through a very thin dialysis membrane. Water may be polluted at the collection-, treatment- or distribution centers or locally at the place of consumption. Aluminum, chloramine, pesticides, copper, herbicides and many other substances as well as bacteria, may be found in water. For these reasons the nephrologist uses a series of devices to clean or purify the water before use in his dialysis unit: softeners, de-ionisators, reverse-osmosis, charcoal filters, ultraviolet irradiation, a.o. A correct water circuit is important as well, as dead spaces could cause bacterial contamination. The ultra pure water has to be mixed before use in the dialyzer, with a concentrated electrolyte solution. The author discusses all these different aspects of water treatment in the particular situation of hemodialysis.
Drinking water supplies of 161 rural communities, in Georgetown County, South Carolina, were randomly selected for sample collection. The analysis showed that most of the waters were slightly acidic. Low, but acceptable concentrations of chloride, copper, fluoride, sodium, cadmium, nitrate and phosphate were found. A few water samples showed higher then recommended levels of arsenic, mercury, zinc and lead. Although only 2% of the samples exceeded the mandatory limit of 0.05 ppm for arsenic, 72% exceeded the recommended level of 0.01 ppm. The mandatory limit for manganese was exceeded in 37% of the waters while 88% exceeded the limit for iron. The high iron content was generally responsible for the high turbidity found in 45% of the samples. The well depth and the consumer income had some bearing on water quality. Statistical evidence suggested that septic tank seepage was partially responsible for nitrate, phosphate, iron and arsenic contamination of shallow water supplies. Lead concentrations appear to vary according to the plumbing used and the pH of the waters.
Based on material published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) in the Federal Register for 19 November 1991, many state environmental agencies have proposed and/or adopted revisions to their State Water Quality Standards (WQS) for organic and inorganic chemicals in fresh and marine waters (see, for example, State of Connecticut, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Water Management, (1992), memorandum to Interested Parties concerning the Water Quality Standards Hearing Report). Generally, many states simply republish the U.S. EPA's proposed Water Quality Criteria (WQC) as the State's proposed WQS. Many of the state WQS and federal WQC values--especially those for organic compounds regulated as human or animal carcinogens--are much more stringent than the values now in effect because the U.S. EPA's new methodology (i) for estimating exposure point concentrations, exposure doses, carcinogenic potency, and incremental lifetime cancer risk and (ii) for setting the target acceptable risk combine a series of conservative assumptions into an equally conservative set of results. In the Federal Register proposal, the U.S. EPA failed to honor its standard risk assessment methodology in that (i) it failed to perform a quantitative or even qualitative uncertainty analysis and (ii) it failed to analyze the overall degree of conservatism in the results. The U.S. EPA suggested that the analysis is suitably conservative for the average exposed adult, but it failed to consider various phenomena that make the proposed WQC far more conservative than acknowledged or intended. To focus on a central problem of manageable size, this article dissects the method by which the U.S. EPA calculates proposed WQC for organic chemicals regulated as human or animal carcinogens. Because the results for most such chemicals are driven by the pathway for the human ingestion of fish which have bioconcentrated the chemicals from the water column (as opposed to the pathway for direct ingestion of water by humans), this article focuses exclusively on the fish-to-human pathway. These considerations form the basis of general quality assurance criteria and standards.
Relationships of drinking water quality to CHD and sudden death were studied in two rural areas in western and eastern Finland. In the eastern area, drinking water is particularly soft and contains less magnesium and chromium but more copper than in the western area. A 15-year follow-up of resident males showed a higher death rate from CHD in the eastern area but no difference in the proportion of sudden deaths. The data suggest that CHD may be associated with low concentrations of magnesium and chromium in the drinking water, but no definite relationship was found between water quality and sudden death.
A case is presented for the use of experimental bioassay techniques to detect and measure variations in water quality in the marine environment by exposing suitable organisms in the laboratory to water samples collected in the field. A technique is described which was developed for this purpose with the use of a clonal hydroid; preliminary results from Swansea Bay show that it is sensitive to the variations in water quality that occur there. Chemical techniques are being developed for use in conjunction with such bioassays to identify the kinds of contaminants responsible for a detected effect, and some preliminary experiments suggest that divalent metals and the volatile constituents of hydrocarbons can be removed selectively from sea water.
Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gene probe detection of target lacZ and uidA genes were used to detect total coliform bacteria and Escherichia coli, respectively, for determining water quality. In tests of environmental water samples, the lacZ PCR method gave results statistically equivalent to those of the plate count and defined substrate methods accepted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for water quality monitoring and the uidA PCR method was more sensitive than 4-methylumbelliferyl-beta-D-glucuronide-based defined substrate tests for specific detection of E. coli.
The occurrence of the munitions compound 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) in groundwater and surface water surrounding U.S. Army ammunition plants may result in contamination of local drinking water supplies. TNT exerts its primary toxic effect in humans on the hematologic system and liver, but it is also known to cause gastrointestinal effects and cataracts. Health effects data were analyzed for TNT and although no controlled human studies exist concerning the acute or chronic toxic effects of exposure to TNT, sufficient animal toxicity data are available to derive an ambient water quality criterion for the protection of human health. This paper summarizes the available literature on metabolism and toxicity of TNT in humans and animals. Based on noncarcinogenic mammalian toxicity data, and following the methodologies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, an ambient water quality criterion for the protection of human health of 135 micrograms/liter is proposed when consumption of both contaminated water and fish is anticipated. For drinking water alone, the proposed criterion is 140 micrograms/liter.
This paper reports on the impact of mass bathing on Ganga River water quality on the occasion of the Maha-Shivaratri festival at Haudeshwarnath Ghat situated on the left bank of the River Ganga in the district of Pratapgarh, India. Water samples collected from three sampling points before and after mass bathing were analysed for a total of 17 physico-chemical and seven biological parameters. It was concluded from the results that mass bathing causes a significant change in water quality of the river, which may represent a health hazard to users of the river water.
The presence of a reproductive toxicant in drinking water is one possible explanation of differences in spontaneous abortion rates between women who drink tapwater and those who do not. As part of the investigation conducted by the California Department of Health Services, several routine water quality assays were used to screen water sources available to the populations studied. I reviewed information in the literature about the potential reproductive toxicity of contaminants detected in these assays. None of these contaminants was clearly linked to increased incidence of abortion in the studies reviewed.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has recently recommended a lifetime health advisory (HA) for hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX). The purpose of this brief article is to present the basis for the calculation of the HA so that the reader can compare it with a water quality criterion (WQC) that has been proposed (E. L. Etnier, 1989, Regul. Toxicol. Pharmacol. 9, 147-157). In the earlier article, a water quality criterion of 105 micrograms/liter for RDX in drinking water was proposed, and in the present article the methodology by which USEPA calculated a lifetime HA of 2 micrograms/liter is presented. The differences in the derivation of the WQC and the HA are discussed.
The results relating to the research carried out on the river Po upstream and downstream Cremona town, at Casalmaggiore and at the mouths of the right side tributaries Arda-Ongina and Taro in the period 1971-72 are reported in the present note. The samplings took place once every month and on the same day flow measurements were effected by the Magistracy of the river Po in the five stations. The results of this first series of sampling have shown a good stability of the water quality of the river Po, in the different seasons and in the different hydrological conditions. No significative differences were poi nted out for the most part of the determined parameters between the stations upstream and downstream Cremona and Casalmaggiore, except the turbid load (turbidity, suspended matter at 105 degrees C, setteable solids) which presented at Casalmaggiore an average value absolutely higher than the calculated one which was achieved considering concentrations and river flow at Cremona and at the mouths of Arda-Ongina and Taro. With few exceptions the water quality keeps a good level for fish life and its actual pollution degree let us think it possible to improve the situation in a short time. Only microbiological parameters are excepted, as they exceed the proposed limits for recreation and bathing uses (W.Q.C.).
The degree of purity of surface waters can be seen from investigations on the communities of life of plant and animal organisms. A great number of organisms characteristic of certain degrees of pollution were classified in the "saprobic system", which is still valid. As a supplement to the chemical water analysis, the bio-ecological test is an optional method for characterizing the quality of waters--as, for instance, in the case of the river Lippe.