Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Most arsenic adsorption removal technologies will pass the TCLP, which means they
will be disposed in a municipal landill. A recent dissertation by Fernando Javier Alday
at the Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Arizona, titled “Iron
biomineralization: implications on the fate of arsenic in landills,” discusses the fate of
arsenic bound to iron-based media. His study on the leachability of primarily arsenate
(As
5+
), which is the arsenic form that iron-based media primarily adsorb, is that it can leach
in a municipal landill and would leach back into the landill leachate and follow its fate
with leachate collection system treatment or discharge, or with percolation into the local
groundwater.
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9.8 Summary
For smaller community water treatment systems, cost per thousand gallons treated is not
the only metric that needs to be evaluated in determining which technology and system
gets implemented. Removing both forms of arsenic is imperative to provide clean drink-
ing water, being able to have a system that can be remotely monitored and does not require
a full time operator as well as a connection to a sanitary sewer all come into play in making
the decision about which technology to implement.
A secondary consideration is where will the arsenic be disposed of and what prevents
it from reentering the groundwater and having to be treated again. As cost is evaluated
for treatment, what is the cost to the economy of a country for not providing clean drink-
ing water knowing full well that people drinking arsenic-laden water are slowly being
poisoned?
The United Nations Secretary General Koi Annan asked us to face up to the threat of
catastrophic world water crises, and to counter such bleak forecasts by adopting a new
spirit of stewardship. To refuse this new spirit would be nothing less than a crime—and
history would rightly judge us harshly for it.
We know there is arsenic in the water and we know several treatment strategies for
removing it cost-effectively and even after 7 years with the new arsenic treatment rule
implemented in the United States by the EPA, not all municipal drinking water systems
are compliant. Without question, we all have a ways to go to remedy this problem on a
global basis.
References
1. “Basic Information about Arsenic in Drinking Water” (May 21, 2012). U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. Available at http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation
/ arsenic.cfm.
2. Ruebel, Frederick Jr. (March 2003). “Design Manual: Removal of Arsenic from Drinking Water
by Adsorptive Media” EPA/600/R-03/019. Available at http://epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/dw
/ arsenic/pubs/DesignManualRemovalofArsenicFromDrinkingWaterbyAdsorptiveMedia.pdf.
3.
WHO Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality
, 4th edition. (2011). Available at http://www.who
.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/guidelines/en/.
