Asbestos in Drinking ‐ Water: No Health Hazard

1994 ◽  
Vol 160 (10) ◽  
pp. 632-632
Keyword(s):  
1993 ◽  
Vol 27 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 127-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Dizer ◽  
J. Dürkop ◽  
A. Grohmann ◽  
H. Kopecka ◽  
J. M. López-Pila

Secondary effluent of wastewater treatment plants contains a high number of viruses and other pathogens, which pose a health risk to the population, (especially when receiv ng waters are used for bathing and swimming, or for growing shellfish. In areas with a high density of population, where drinking water supply is dependent on surface waters and contaminated rivers are the primary source of drinking water, failure of the filtration or of the disinfection step, or of any other “barriers” supposed to warrant safe potable water, will increase the risk of health hazard for the consumer. We have compared the efficiency of viral elimination in secondary effluent by flocculation, uv rradiation and membrane filtration taking naturally occurring, or additionally seeded f2 phages, as indicator for viruses. Flocculation decreased the number of phages present in secondary effluent by more than two logs. If combined with uv irradiation, the elimination reached five additional logs. Membrane filtration eliminated essentially all naturally occurring phages. Improvement of the quality of surface waters calls for a refinement of detection methods for viruses. We have found that the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) might be used for detecting viruses in surface waters.


Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5840
Author(s):  
Enver Faella ◽  
Simona Mancini ◽  
Michele Guida ◽  
Albina Cuomo ◽  
Domenico Guida

Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas present in the hydrosphere, lithosphere and atmosphere abundantly. Its ionizing radiation provides the largest human internal exposure by inhalation and ingestion to natural sources, constituting a serious health hazard. The contribution to total exposure is mainly due to inhalation, as ingestion by food or drinking water is typically very small. However, because of public health concerns, the contributions from all these sources are limited by regulations and remedial action should be taken in the event that the defined threshold values are overcome. In this paper, the first campaign of measurements to control the radon activity concentration in drinking water from public water supplies in the province of Salerno, south Italy, is described. The results represent a main reference for the area, as it was never investigated before. The purpose of this survey was to contribute to data compilation concerning the presence of radon-222 in groundwater in the Campania region and to determine the associated risk for different age groups. The maximum radon activity concentrations and the related total annual public effective dose turned out to be lower than the threshold values (100 Bq/l and 0.1 mSv/y, respectively) indicated by international guidelines and the national regulation, showing that the health risks for public consumption can be considered negligible.


Local Precipitation (Rain) is a good source of surface water and could be a safe source of drinking water if it is free from contaminants. Many Asian countries do not have access to safe drinking water; therefore, they have no alternative but to use water from contaminated sources that poses a health hazard. In the present study, thirty three rain water samples were collected from Karachi, Pakistan during monsoon season of year 2007. The pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), dissolved oxygen (DO) and hardness were immediately monitored after sample collections and possible sources of NH4, Na, K, Mg, Ca, F- , Cl- , NO3 - , CO3 -2 and SO4 -2 concentrations in rain water of Karachi city, Sindh, Pakistan were analyzed in order to distinguish safe source of drinking water. All samples were completely free from fluoride contamination while the concentration of chloride and sulfate was in range of 15.11-125 mg/l and 10.02- 72.02 mg/l indicate their presence from air pollution. Moreover, the study showed that the rain water can be harvested to extend potable and non-potable water supplies in this city.


2019 ◽  
Vol 96 (11) ◽  
pp. 1038-1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. V. Zaitseva ◽  
Irina V. May ◽  
S. V. Klein ◽  
S. S. Khankharev ◽  
A. A. Boloshinova

There are described an algorithm and methods for collecting the evidential base for causing hazard to the health of the population of Zakamensk (the Republic of Buryatia) in the zone of influence of the waste of the past activities of the Dzhidinsky tungsten-molybdenum combine. The source of danger is lying sands, containing a complex of toxic heavy metals - lead, cadmium, manganese, nickel, chromium, etc. The algorithm for the formation of the evidential base included: a general analysis of the sanitary and hygienic situation; assessment in the dynamics of the quality of atmospheric air, drinking water, soil, food; assessment of the risk to the health of the population; epidemiological studies; in-depth clinical surveys of a representative group of city residents (280 people). In the blood of the examinees, heavy metals were identified as biological markers of the exposure. There was evaluated a complex of the response (effect) adequate to effects of laboratory markers. By methods of mathematical statistics there was established the presence of reliable relationships in the system “source of hazard - the quality of the environment - exposure to risk factors - health status.” The hazard to the health of a citizen, due to the negative impact of the factor, was considered to be proven if it was possible to build a continuous step-by-step logical chain of relationships between the source of the harmful effect, the quality of the habitat and the establishment of the fact of the disease. The quality of the habitat of the population of Zakamensk was shown to give rise in unacceptable risks to the health of residents. The main influencing factor is the pollution of atmospheric air, local food products and drinking water from public and private wells. Risks are realized in terms of a level of the primary morbidity rate of the population of the respiratory diseases, endocrine system, digestive organs that is relatively high compared to the matched area. The relationship between health hazard and environmental factors has been fully proved in 14% of the surveyed persons. At the same time, the territory was shown not be characterized as a zone of “ecological disaster” or “an emergency environmental situation”.


2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshood Keke Mustapha ◽  
Joy Chinenye Ewulum

AbstractHeavy metals are present in low concentrations in reservoirs, but seasonal anthropogenic activities usually elevate the concentrations to a level that could become a health hazard. The dry season concentrations of cadmium, copper, iron, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc were assessed from three sites for 12 weeks in Oyun reservoir, Offa, Nigeria. Triplicate surface water samples were collected and analysed using atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The trend in the level of concentrations in the three sites is site C > B > A, while the trend in the levels of the concentrations in the reservoir is Ni > Fe > Zn > Pb > Cd > Cu > Hg. Ni, Cd, Pb and Hg were found to be higher than the WHO guidelines for the metals in drinking water. The high concentration of these metals was from anthropogenic watershed run-off of industrial effluents, domestic sewages and agricultural materials into the reservoir coming from several human activities such as washing, bathing, fish smoking, especially in site C. The health effects of high concentration of these metals in the reservoir were highlighted. Methods for the treatment and removal of the heavy metals from the reservoir during water purification such as active carbon adsorption, coagulation-flocculation, oxidation-filtration, softening treatment and reverse osmosis process were highlighted. Other methods that could be used include phytoremediation, rhizofiltration, bisorption and bioremediation. Watershed best management practices (BMP) remains the best solution to reduce the intrusion of the heavy metals from the watershed into the reservoir.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deepa Dixit ◽  
Virupakshi Soppina ◽  
Chinmay Ghoroi

AbstractAccess to safe drinking water is still a distant dream to millions of people around the world. Especially, people from the low-income group in the developing countries remain deprived of this fundamental right and causes millions of death. There is an urgent need to develop affordable and easy to handle water filter which can provide desired drinking water quality without any electricity. In the present work, a simple and low-cost surface engineered particle (SEP) based filter is developed via alkali treatment of soda-lime-silica particle. The SEP based filter can be used as a portable, non-electric, gravity-driven Point-of-Use (POU) water disinfection system. The developed SEP-based filter is capable to arrest the 99.48% (~2 to 2.5 log10 reduction) of gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli OP50) on its surface from the water containing 3 × 108 cells/ml. No bacterial regrowth is observed in the purified water for 12 h. The performance of SEP bed filter is implicated to the nano-scale surface roughness, its distribution along with the surface charge and surface hydrophobicity which are favorable to attract and adhere the bacteria in the flowing water. The observation is consistent over multiple filtration cycles indicating the suitability of SEP based bed filter for POU water disinfection. The SEP surface with 0.05 mM Ag+ loading (SEP+) completely inactivated (>99.99999%) bacteria and protects any bacteria recontamination in the purified water for its long term usage. The strong and effective silver binding property of SEP surface enables very minimal silver loading and eliminates any health hazard due to low silver leaching (~50 ppb) which is well below the drinking water equivalent level (DWEL ≤ 100 ppb). In rural and urban slum areas of developing countries where no water purification system exists prior to consumption, the easy-to-implement and affordable SEP-based gravity-driven non-electric point-of-use water purifier (materials cost ~ 0.25 USD) can be used to protect millions of lives from water borne diseases.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia N. Aziz ◽  
Kevin J. Boyle ◽  
Tom Crocker

Arsenic contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh is a widespread public health hazard. Water sources without high arsenic levels are scarce, affecting people's availability for work and other activities when they have to seek safe water to drink. While children are particularly susceptible to chronic arsenic exposure, limited information and heavy constraints on resources may preclude people in developing countries from taking protective actions. Since parents are primary decision-makers for children, a model of stochastic decision-making analytically linking parent health and child health is used to frame the valuation of avoiding arsenic exposure using an averting behavior model. The results show that safe drinking water programs do work and that people do take protective actions. The results can help guide public health mitigation policies, and examine whether factors such as child health and time required for remediation have an effect on mitigation measures.


2012 ◽  
Vol 724 ◽  
pp. 97-100
Author(s):  
Eiji Watanabe ◽  
Kaori Nishizawa ◽  
Masato Tazawa

Because bromic acid ion generated by the ozone processing of drinking water for sterilization is strong carcinogenic, there is a high possibility in persons health hazard. The titanium dioxide was reduced at 900-degree Centigrade by the gas atmosphere (CO or H2). It was found that the concentration of the bromic acid ion in water was decreased at time when the reduced titanium oxide was added to water including the bromic acid ion. The bromic acid ion in water could be adsorbed by the titanium oxide reduced. In addition, it was suggested that the bromic acid ion could be decomposed into the bromide ion with low carcinogenic by using the photocatalitic function of titanium oxide under UV irradiation.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Nasimullah Qureshi ◽  
Inayat Ur Rahman

Flood in 2010 severely effected different areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, lower Punjab as well as some parts of Balochistan, Pakistan. After the flood, samples of drinking water were collected from the affected areas i.e. Akora Khattak and Buner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and pesticides residues were determined quantitatively in these samples employing GC-MS technique. Among the samples collected from Akora Khattak, chlorpyrifos was found in high amounts i.e. 0.040 ppm, in sample no. 6 while methamidophos and methiocarb were found in appreciable quantities i.e. 0.026 ppm and 0.038 ppm, respectively, in sample no. 4. Methamidophos and methiocarb were found in appreciable amounts i.e. 0.039 ppm and 0.034 ppm, respectively, in sample no. 17 among the samples obtained from Buner. Concentrations were found at the level below 0.01 ppm in most of the pesticides under study. From the results it appears that drinking water sources in the area under study have been contaminated with pesticides which is a health hazard and may be a source of various diseases in these areas. 


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