Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Colorado, then fl ows into Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, is one
river with some of these issues. The high concentrations of these
contaminants in the Arkansas River in eastern Colorado and south-
western Kansas are mainly the result of agricultural consumption
of the water, which leaves the salts behind. To illustrate how that
happens, hydrogeologist Don Whittemore of the Kansas Geological
Survey suggests the following analogy.
“Imagine a pot of water boiling on the stove. If you allow the
pot to boil down until it's dry, a white scum is what's left. That white
stuff is the salts in the water. It's much the same with the Arkansas
River water diverted for irrigation. As the water evaporates and is
consumed by crops, what remains are salts and minerals in more
concentrated form. The saline water can then seep into and con-
taminate the underlying aquifer.”
At least two cities along the Arkansas River in Kansas have recorded
uranium levels well above the standard, says Whittemore, who is study-
ing uranium levels along the Arkansas through a grant project. The
city of Lakin already has decided to spend several million dollars on
a new water treatment system to help deal with the problem.
Deadly Salmonella
Another consideration is the dreaded scenario of the science-fi ction
realm—a town's water supply mysteriously and suddenly poisoned.
Imagine waking up one day to fi nd out your tap water is off limits. In
spring 2008, that's exactly what happened in small Alamosa, Colorado,
after more than 300 people there suddenly came down with salmo-
nella poisoning linked to their water supply. The town's nearly 8,000
residents were warned to drink bottled water only and not even to
shower with the town's water for two weeks. The entire system needed
to be fl ushed with chlorine to kill the bacteria, and it was nearly
a month before Alamosa got its water back. It took more than a year
for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
to issue a report on the cause of the contamination: “animal source
of fecal contamination.” Apparently the contaminants found their
way into the city's above-ground storage reservoir, and then subse-
quently into the city's water system likely by way of “cracks and holes”
in the reservoir walls (there's that old and antiquated infrastructure
