Arsenic Removal (Term Paper Sample)

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Professor
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Arsenic Removal
Assess possible health risks from two different wells in a region. Well 1 reaches a regional aquifer with a potentiometric surface 300 feet below the ground surface and the rock layers are mostly fractured 500 million year old metamorphic rocks. Well 2 is in a smaller valley unconfined aquifer with a water table 100 feet below the surface. The water bearing units are unconsolidated to poorly consolidated river deposits of sand, silt, and clay, ranging from several hundred thousand to several thousand years old. Which well is more likely to have an arsenic risk and why?
Well 1. The well is constructed deep into old metamorphic rocks, which have high possibility of containing arsenic rocks. When the rocks dissolve, they directly enter the well.
You suspect that someone may have health problems due to long-term exposure to arsenic in drinking water:
List 5 physical symptoms you should look for.
Skin thickening and discoloration
Nausea and diarrhea;
Less production of blood cells;
Abnormal heart rhythm and blood vessel damage
Numbness in feet and hands
What is the first and most important step in treating their illness?
Treatment involves removal of arsenic through dialysis.
Is chelation alone a good treatment option? Why or why not?
No. there is need to remove arsenic content in the body and for replacement of red blood cells (Spayd
You have a field test kit that tells you that water from a given well has an arsenic concentration of < 0.050 mg/L (50 µg/L, parts per billion (ppb)). Is this sufficient or should you send a sample to a lab for testing?
0.050 mg/L is the maximum level of arsenic content allowed and should be subjected to lab treatment.
If you decide to send a sample to a lab, what is the minimum concentration that the lab should be able to detect?
The minimum concentration to be detected should be 0.01 mg/L (10 μg/L or 10 ppb) (WHO 1)
A rural community has been relying on a small reservoir for its drinking water needs. Drought and population growth are forcing the neighborhood to consider a new source for water. The system needs to be designed to provide water for 200 households. Assume water use of 0.5 acre-feet per year per household. The area receives 15 inches of rain per year on average, but it’s not uncommon for 3 months to go by between significant storms. Groundwater options are as follows:
A.) A shallow, local, unconfined aquifer can be tapped. The water table is 120 feet below the ground surface, and is estimated to extend to 250 feet, with a low hydraulic conductivity layer below. The concentration of arsenic in this water is 35 ppb. Otherwise, the water is of high quality, low in turbidity and microbes, with no other known chemical hazards. The water bearing units are mostly unconsolidated river sediments.
B.) A regional, confined aquifer lies much deeper. The potentiometric surface is 900 feet below the ground surface, with the water-bearing unit lying 1,000 – 1,400 feet below the surface. The high quality water has an arsenic concentration of 3 ppb, and no other known hazards. The rock units are fractured metamorphic rock and sandstone.
C.) 5 miles from the community lies a larger town, with a population of 5,000 people. An existing well can provide up to 600 gallons per minute. It taps into the same regional aquifer, with the same water quality and depths to potentiometric surface and layers below ground.
Water options
The community can treat and use the regional aquifer plus their current source of water. The cost involve in this will be high costs of removing arsenic; however, they will have enough water resources.
The community to collect water from the unconfirmed aquifer and mixed it with some water drawn from town. There will...