The concentrations of trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, disinfection by-products (DBPs) of chlorine, were measured in sandy bottom swimming areas to determine their potential impact on surface and ground water tha...
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The concentrations of trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, disinfection by-products (DBPs) of chlorine, were measured in sandy bottom swimming areas to determine their potential impact on surface and ground water that are sources of drinking water. Total trihalomethanes and individual haloacetic acid concentrations in several swimming area samples were higher than the drinking water standards (current and proposed). Individual trihalomethanes (except bromoform) also exceeded ground and surface water release standards. No release standard exists for haloacetic acids. The DBPs, while exceeding standards, would be diluted by the ground water and microbially degraded prior to reaching the drinking water plant. So while DBPs from swimming areas contributed to groundwater concentrations, the current drinking water standards could still be met using source waters impacted by chlorinated swimming areas. It is suggested, though, that any release of chlorinated DBPs to surface and ground water be minimized to obtain the highest quality water sources for drinking water.
The Fogarty-supported International Training program of the Southwest Center for Occupational and environ.ental Health (SWCOEH) at the University of Texas School of Public Health was initiated in 1995, with its activi...
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The Fogarty-supported International Training program of the Southwest Center for Occupational and environ.ental Health (SWCOEH) at the University of Texas School of Public Health was initiated in 1995, with its activities focused primarily on Latin America. As this program has matured, its participants have been concerned about including elements that increase the likelihood that its trainees and projects will have a sustainable impact on occupational and environ.ental health in collaborating countries. The Center recently reviewed the experiences of various international organizations and national development agencies with established track records involving donor-supported projects. The authors summarize factors associated with project sustainability and describe how some of them are being incorporated into the SWCOEH program. Particular mention is made of the importance of supporting an infrastructure for broad information dissemination in the language of the intended audience. An example of a project to support a peer-reviewed Spanish-language journal devoted to occupational and environ.ental health, Salud de los Trabajadores, is presented.
Assessing the impacts of projects that affect aquatic resources is an integral part of regulatory programs. The time, resource, and technical requirements of existing assessment methods often prohibit their routine us...
Assessing the impacts of projects that affect aquatic resources is an integral part of regulatory programs. The time, resource, and technical requirements of existing assessment methods often prohibit their routine use by regulatory staff. Consequently, many evaluations are based on area affected and best professional judgment. In this paper, we present a Rapid Impact Assessment Method (RIAM) that can be used to assess impacts to aquatic resources in a manner that is sci.ntifically defensible, yet easy to implement by regulators, planners, and resource managers. The RIAM provides a framework for assessing impacts while allowing for specialization of evaluation criteria based on the habitat type, region of interest, and specific regulatory, planning, or management goal. Site-specific impacts are assessed by comparing the conditions present at each site prior to project implementation to conditions present after implementation of the project. A set of evaluation criteria is defined to reflect the important ecological characteristics to be evaluated. Each project site is given a pre- and post-project rating for each evaluation criterion, ranging from A for site conditions similar to those present at reference sites to E for the most degraded condition. Impact scores for each criterion, ranging from -4 to +4, are based on the difference between the pre- and post-project rating levels at each site. We demonstrate the application of the RIAM by using it to assess the impacts of projects permitted under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act on the following six evaluation criteria: endangered species habitat, structural diversity of habitat, spatial diversity of habitat, open space habitat, linear contiguity of habitat, and adjacent habitats. In the future, the method developed in this study can be used as a predictive tool to help monitor impacts on an ongoing basis.
Several laboratory tests were conducted to examine Fe(II) as an enhancing agent in the dehalogenation of CHCl3 in batch mode. The CHCl3 degradation was found to be negligible when only Fe(II) is present as a reductant...
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Several laboratory tests were conducted to examine Fe(II) as an enhancing agent in the dehalogenation of CHCl3 in batch mode. The CHCl3 degradation was found to be negligible when only Fe(II) is present as a reductant in the (aqueous) reaction system. However, in the presence of Fe(II) coated goethite, the rate of CHCl3 degradation was enhanced to some extent. This observation can be explained by considering a surface mediated electron transfer step in the overall process. Substantial increase of the degradation rate was observed when the goethite particles first coated with fulvic acid were employed in the adsorption of Fe(II) for the degradation of CHCl3.
Autotrophic denitrification was investigated in five bench-scale upflow attached growth reactors using hydrogen oxidizing bacteria under anoxic conditions. The performance of sand, granular activated carbon (GAC), cru...
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Autotrophic denitrification was investigated in five bench-scale upflow attached growth reactors using hydrogen oxidizing bacteria under anoxic conditions. The performance of sand, granular activated carbon (GAC), crushed pumice, crushed volcanic rock, and plastic media were evaluated as the support material. The reactors were inoculated with acclimated cultures obtained from domestic sewage treatment plant. A synthetic solution containing nitrate was used as the influent. The reactor performance was evaluated by measuring influent and effluent nitrate concentration. The design parameters demonstrated that the effectiveness of autotrophic denitrification is comparable to that of the heterotrophic process and may be utilized economically for drinking water treatment either as the main process or as a supplemental process for ion exchange regenerant treatment.
Studies were conducted to assess the biotransformation kinetics and inhibitory effects of mono-, di-, and trichlorophenol on acetogenic and methanogenic reactions using a standardized anaerobic protocol. Intrinsic kin...
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Studies were conducted to assess the biotransformation kinetics and inhibitory effects of mono-, di-, and trichlorophenol on acetogenic and methanogenic reactions using a standardized anaerobic protocol. Intrinsic kinetic parameters were estimated for each reaction using the Monod model. Reductive dechlorination of the toxicants was investigated using acclimated mixed cultures under methanogenic conditions. The studies indicated that inhibition of acetogenesis and methanogenesis was best described using exponential rather than linear inhibition terms. A second significant observation was that acclimated test cultures had a finite biodegradation capacity for each chemical that was related to the mass of microorganism present. A unique feature of the test program was that inhibition and biodegradation were modeled using the specific biomass responsible for acetogenesis and methanogenesis rather than the total anaerobic biomass.
Some academic programs, such as Earth and Space sci.nce Education, require students to obtain a basic understanding of geology. The traditional approach to meeting these needs is to enroll the students in introductory...
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Some academic programs, such as Earth and Space sci.nce Education, require students to obtain a basic understanding of geology. The traditional approach to meeting these needs is to enroll the students in introductory-level courses and then advise them to take a small number of upper-level courses. Although this approach provides upper-level training in a few geology subdisci.lines, it falls short of the original goal of providing a basic understanding of geology in a limited number of credit hours. Our solution to this problem has been to develop three new upper-level courses that integrate geology subdisci.lines in a way that enables students to comprehend earth systems or the geological framework of a geographic area. We believe that these integrated courses provide our students with a higher level of geologic understanding and problem-solving skills than an equivalent number of credits earned through traditional courses. This is because integrated courses can deliver knowledge and experience in how the subdisci.lines of geology support one another and how they can be used together to solve practical problems. We believe that, for smaller programs and smaller institutions, integrated courses make sense and serve the needs of students in the best possible way.
Using a factorial experiment framework, a systematic relationship is developed between uncoupled and coupled land surface model sensitivities. It is shown that the relative sensitivity of a coupled land-atmosphere mod...
Using a factorial experiment framework, a systematic relationship is developed between uncoupled and coupled land surface model sensitivities. It is shown that the relative sensitivity of a coupled land-atmosphere model can be partitioned into the relative sensitivity of the corresponding uncoupled model, a term related to interactive effects, and a product term involving main effects of land and atmospheric processes. A widely used land surface model is used in its uncoupled and coupled modes to illustrate the methodology. The proposed methodology demonstrates the need and utility to combine the traditional one-factor-at-a-time method (e.g., relative sensitivity analysis) with a factorial experiment framework. The traditional sensitivity analysis cannot evaluate the multifactor effects. The factorial design experiments, on the other hand, can estimate multifactor effects but are not dimensionless and hence depend on the chosen range of parameters. The proposed method offers the best of both approaches by estimating multifactor effects with dimensionless quantities. The proposed framework is used to explain why sensitivities to certain land surface parameters are enhanced or damped when the land surface module is coupled with an atmospheric model. For the tested cases there does not appear to be any systematic trend in sensitivities of the coupled and uncoupled models. It is argued and shown that similarity of relative sensitivities between an uncoupled and coupled model does not necessarily imply that the influence of land-atmosphere feedback is negligible. By decomposing the relative sensitivity of a coupled model, we have shown that interactions between land and atmosphere cannot be neglected while testing land surface representations.
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