The Environmental Science of Drinking Water

The Environmental Science of Drinking Water

Patrick J. Sullivan

Franklin J. Agardy

James J.J. Clark

Butterworth-Heinemann

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: The Water We Drink

Publisher Summary

Natural Water

Water and the Public Health

Chapter 2: Water Pollution

Publisher Summary

Human Waste and Pollution

Industrial Pollution

Wastewater Control and Treatment

Nonpoint Sources of Water Pollution

Pollution Sources and Water Quality

Summary

Chapter 3: Water Protection

Publisher Summary

The Basics of Water Supply

Basic Water Treatment

Beyond Basic Water Treatment

An Issue of Equality

Chemical Monitoring and Warnings for Regulated Pollutants

The National Drinking Water Contaminant Occurrence Database

Unregulated Pollutants and Monitoring Regulations

Setting New Drinking Water Standards

Why Consumers Should Be Concerned

Approaches to Mitigate Chemical Exposure

Water Pollution and Risk

Chapter 4: Living with the Risk of Polluted Water

Publisher Summary

The Burden of Proof

Permissible Pollution

The Dose Makes the Poison

Basic Concepts of Dose

Mechanism of Toxicity

Biotransformation and Detoxification

Toxicity and Defining Standards

Timing Is Everything

Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals

Pharmaceutical Pollutants

Pharmaceuticals Detected in the Environment

Living with Risk

Population, Pollution, Risk, and Precaution

The Risk Assessment Process

Summary

Chapter 5: Managing Risk and Drinking Water Quality

Publisher Summary

Learning from the Past and Present

Risk and Economics

An Alternative Approach

Consumer-Based Protection

Potential Action by the Water Industry

Potential Governmental Actions

Support for Community Water Systems

Water Infrastructure

Support for Small In-Home and Workplace Water Treatment Systems

An Alternative Risk Management Program

APPENDIX 1-1: Average Elemental Abundance in the Earth’s Crust

APPENDIX 1-2: Chemical Compounds with Established Water Quality Criteria—1952

APPENDIX 1-3: USEPA National Recommended Water Quality Criteria for Freshwater and Human Consumption of Water + Organism: 2002

APPENDIX 2-1: Dow Industrial Chemicals, Solvents and Dyes in 1938

APPENDIX 2-2: USEPA List of Priority Pollutants

APPENDIX 2-3: Summary of Surface Water Data

APPENDIX 2-4: Summary of Shallow Groundwater Data

APPENDIX 2-5: Organic Chemicals Found in Landfill Leachate and Gas

APPENDIX 2-6: Unregulated Pollutants Discharged to or Identified in Water Resources

APPENDIX 2-7: Chemicals Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer or Reproductive Toxicity (April 20, 2001)

APPENDIX 2-8: Regulated Pesticides in Food4 with Residue Tolerances

APPENDIX 2-9: Comparison of Chemicals Required to Be Monitored in Groundwater

APPENDIX 3-1: General Drinking Water Monitoring and Warning Requirements (as of 2002)

APPENDIX 3-2: National Drinking Water Contaminant Occurrence Database Data on Primary Water Quality Standards (May 18, 2001)

APPENDIX 3-3: National Drinking Water Contaminant Occurrence Database: Data on Unregulated Compounds

APPENDIX 3-4: Examples of Bottled Mineral Water Chemistry

APPENDIX 3-5

APPENDIX 3-6: Trace Element Analysis of Mineral Waters (ppb) that Appear in Either Appendix 3–4 or Appendix 3–5

APPENDIX 4-1: Glossary of Terms Adapted from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) (1993)

APPENDIX 4-2: Chemical Examples on the Toxicology of Drinking Water Standards

APPENDIX 4-3: Suspected Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals

APPENDIX 4-4: U.S. Geological Survey Target Compounds, National Reconnaissance of Emerging Contaminants in U.S. Streams (2000)

Glossary

Index

Foreword

Garrison Sposito,     Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California at Berkeley

In an era of hyperbole and hubris, one hesitates to use current media terms like sea-change (despite its currency, not a new term—it was coined by Shakespeare almost 400 years ago) to describe the potential impact of any new book addressing important issues of broad public interest. But Patrick Sullivan and his coauthors, drawing on over 60 years of experience in the field of water quality science and engineering, have written such a book, an incisive and compelling manifesto on the present dangers inherent in the way our nation’s drinking water supplies are being managed today to protect their quality.

Their thesis is that the current approach to water quality management, as codified through USEPA Water Quality Standards, is not sustainable, and cannot achieve its avowed goals because of an intractable complexity, not only of the cumbersome regulatory process through which drinking water standards are created for pollutant chemicals, but also the complexity that now attends the chemical nature of water pollution itself. As they point out, with at least 2000 new chemicals coming into production each year, with our nation already having 40% of its waters out of compliance with quality standards and facing water distribution infrastructure upgrades that will cost about 10% of its annual GDP, how can USEPA possibly assure the future availability of potable drinking water to everyone? And this dilemma does not even consider the many, many unregulated but potentially harmful chemicals now in use for which no water quality standards yet exist.

Everyone cares about the quality of drinking water, but not everyone has the educational or professional background to understand, without some guidance, why their thesis is a sound one. This book has been written to assist the motivated citizen, as well as the interested student, to achieve a solid working knowledge of how water quality is managed and why current approaches to water quality management are not sustainable, ending with a practical blueprint for how to improve drinking water quality, not by confronting head-on its overwhelming complexity as a technological problem, but instead by adapting to this complexity with sensible and feasible changes in both public policy and professional practice.

The first three chapters of this book offer a Cook’s Tour of the science, technology, and policy underlying the chemical pollution and remediation of water supplies used for drinking. They can be read by environmental science and engineering students as a reliable guide to the technical issues involved. But, for the citizen-reader, I would suggest a different strategy: Begin with Chapters 4 and 5 instead. These two chapters offer a Grand Tour of the issues our nation faces in the water quality arena. They are both authoritative and wise, and they will leave the reader with the clear notion that the twenty-first century cannot be a simple technological and political tweaking of the previous one when it comes to protecting our drinking water. Something bolder—and more sustainable—than regulations and risk assessment is needed, and these chapters give a working outline of what that something might be. If an unfamiliar technical term, policy, or professional practice is mentioned, it can be looked up by consulting an appropriate page in the first three chapters. In the end, the reader will come to know that the solution to pollution is not dilution, but instead is a community-based plan of action rooted in that most American of civic values, personal responsibility.

Preface

When there is no boundary between wastewater and drinking water, biological pollution causes the spread of disease and death. This is a common condition within developing nations of the world where little or no clean water is readily available to the population. This situation is unfortunate, as the science and engineering necessary to provide clean water are well known. The boundary between wastewater and drinking water in the industrial nations of the world, for the most part, excludes biological threats. But as populations grow and chemical technology expands, the boundary between chemically polluted wastewater and drinking water is rapidly disappearing.

Because understanding chemical threats to humans is still more art than science, this book focuses on providing a basis for appreciating the threat posed by manufactured chemicals in water resources and the solutions available for minimizing the potential health risk associated with human abuse of this natural product. This focus is well justified given the history of global industrial development.

For example, before the 1900s, the dominant chemical pollutants were inorganic and coal-derived organic chemicals. As chemical manufacturing blossomed during the 1940s, a wide variety of synthetic petroleum-based chemicals were produced and released into the environment. Today in the United States, chemical manufacturers produce approximately 87,000 different chemicals. Current estimates predict the manufacture of at least 2,000 new chemical compounds each year. With so many chemicals being produced and used, it is no wonder that a significant portion of the nation’s lakes, rivers, and groundwater contain a wide range of industrial inorganic and organic compounds, including pesticides and pharmaceuticals. These same water resources serve as the source for community drinking water systems and private groundwater wells. Today what is being evidenced in the United States is also recognized worldwide.

In 1925, the U.S. Public Health Service’s Primary Drinking Water Standards required that the concentration of three trace metals not exceed certain limits in drinking water. This requirement can be considered to have been the first step in controlling chemical pollution. By 1962, nine trace metals and inorganic compounds were included in the drinking water standards. Today, in compliance with the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act and its amendments, the Primary Drinking Water Standards still only limits the concentration of a very small number of inorganic chemicals, industrial organic compounds, and organic pesticides. These regulated compounds represent the major sources of pollution from chemical usage between the 1930s and the 1980s. Since then, the number of industrial chemicals, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals that have been produced and are now found in our waters has increased dramatically. Thus, many of the chemical pollutants found in our waters today are not regulated by current standards.

In 1998, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) proposed adding 50 chemicals to the current list of Primary Drinking Water Standards. Yet, pharmaceuticals do not even appear on this list of 50. Given the number of chemicals being used in the United States today and the apparent inability of drinking water standards to rapidly adapt to these changes, it is clear that standards, as currently implemented, are incapable of keeping pace with the unregulated chemicals that are currently found in our drinking water. Furthermore, current methods of evaluating chemical health risks do not even address the known problem of consuming water containing chemical mixtures.

Approximately 50 years ago, the National Agricultural Chemicals Association argued that pesticides in low concentrations would have no effect on wildlife and that cancer, which had afflicted human beings for centuries, could not be shown to be caused by pesticides. After decades of research, these opinions have both been proven to be wrong. Given this history, why should consumers today believe that the ingestion of low levels of chemical mixtures are not a threat to human health, without sound scientific evidence to substantiate the premise?

Environmental science evaluates how humans use the earth’s natural resources (in this case water resources), appraises the repercussions that occur as the result of this use, and evaluates how to mitigate these impacts. Therefore, it is the objective of this book, by focusing on the environmental science of drinking water, to (1) provide an introduction to the chemistry of the water we drink; (2) describe how water resources are polluted; (3) describe and evaluate how drinking water is protected; (4) assess the health risks associated with chemical pollution; and (5) evaluate and recommend approaches to managing chemically polluted drinking water.

Acknowledgments

We thank Mr. Jerome Gilbert, Past President of the American Water Works Association and former Executive Director of the California State Water Resources Control Board, for his constructive review of this text and Dr. Garrison Sposito, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, for his support and guidance. We owe a sincere debt of gratitude to Paula Massoni for her time and energy in editing the text and Sterling Blanche for his contributions to data collection and analysis.

CHAPTER 1

The Water We Drink

Publisher Summary

In a landscape dominated and modified by human activity, it is not be surprising that the water one drink’s contains both chemical and biological pollutants. Environmental science evaluates how humans use the earth’s natural resources, appraises the repercussions that occur as the result of this use, and evaluates how to mitigate these impacts. Because water that exists at and below the earth’s surface is in contact with soil and rock, some mineral or organic matter is dissolved in it. Based on the natural properties of water (H2O) and the properties of each chemical element and mineral combination, the actual occurrence and concentration of an element in water can vary widely. Another crucial chemical property of water is its relative acidity or alkalinity. This chemical characteristic has a direct influence on the concentration of minor elements and trace elements. Many of the compounds found in natural water are the result of biosynthesis and biodegradation. As a result, natural water can contain a wide range of organic compounds. The chemistry of natural water is highly dependent on its geologic and hydrologic origins, as well as its biological contributions. The imparted chemical characteristics to natural water can be highly valued or a potential threat to public health. The federal government essentially issued a license to allow water resources to be polluted up to an acceptable level. As a natural consequence of setting water quality criteria, specific definitions for the terms contamination and pollution were developed.

The boundaries between water and wastewater are already beginning to fade.

The American Water Works Association (2001)

In a landscape dominated and modified by human activity, it should not be surprising that the water we drink contains both chemical and biological pollutants. After all, the world is dependent on the ever expanding chemical wonders of our agricultural/industrial/pharmaceutical-based society that helps support a growing population. An increasing population in turn pollutes water resources with chemicals and biohazards from the production and use of consumer products, agricultural and animal production, and human waste disposal. This ever increasing spiral of population and pollution means that naturally pure sources of drinking water are almost extinct.

With our technological advances and increased population, there is a price we all pay. This price is drinking water that contains a mixture of manufactured chemicals or biohazards that are a potential threat to human health. This threat can be immediate when an individual is exposed to a water-borne disease, or long-term when drinking chemical pollutants. For those living in industrialized nations (e.g., United States, Canada, European Union), the threat from water-borne biohazards has been significantly reduced or eliminated. However, widespread exposure to specific chemicals or chemical mixtures in drinking water still remains. This condition illustrates the necessity to understand the environmental science of our drinking water if this expanding problem is to be managed or reduced.

Environmental science evaluates how humans use the earth’s natural resources (in this case, water resources), appraises the repercussions that occur as the result of this use, and evaluates how to mitigate these impacts. Therefore, the objective of this book, by focusing on the environmental science of drinking water, is to provide a basis for understanding the threat posed by manufactured chemicals and biohazards in water resources and the solutions available for minimizing the potential health risk associated with our abuse of this natural product.

Natural Water

¹

Before human activity on this earth, the chemistry of water was initially influenced by the dissolution of minerals from soil, rock, biosynthesis, and biodegradation of organic matter. The chemical compounds that dissolve from minerals, biosynthesis, and biodegradation represent natural or background levels in the water we drink. In some cases natural water can contain elevated concentrations of trace elements (e.g., arsenic, copper, fluorine, lead, zinc) that are known to be detrimental to human health. Because many natural waters (i.e., advertised to contain little or no manufactured pollutants) from around the world are bottled and sold as a very expensive healthy alternative to tap water, it is important to at least understand the basic chemistry of natural water.

The hydrologic cycle is the process that has the greatest influence on the chemistry of natural water. For example, when precipitation falls on the land, it follows one of many paths that constitute what is known as the hydrologic cycle (Figure 1-1). As water runs off the earth’s surface, it can infiltrate into the soil,² as well as form into bodies of surface water such as ponds, lakes, and rivers. Much of this surface water will evaporate back into the air, which can reform as clouds and subsequently result in precipitation, or it can continue to percolate into the soil. Once water moves into the soil, it can be removed by plants and evaporated back to the atmosphere (transpiration), or it can continue to move downward to form water-saturated zones in soil and fractured bedrock. These saturated zones are called aquifers. In aquifers, groundwater can find its way back onto the land as a spring, a natural artesian well, or by seeping into ponds, lakes, and rivers. Thus, water is naturally cycled from the earth’s surface into groundwater and back again. This cycle may be only hours long or may occur over centuries. While groundwater remains in an aquifer (i.e., it is not being lost to the surface through a spring or being pumped from a well), it is essentially a stored water resource that can be tapped by a well. Based on this cycle, water resources are usually classified as being either surface water or groundwater. This is an important difference, as the chemistry of each resource is unique to its origin.

FIGURE 1-1 Hydrologic cycle. (Adapted from Todd, 1980.)

Contact with Soil and Rock

Because water that exists at and below the earth’s surface is in contact with soil and rock, some mineral or organic matter will be dissolved into the water. For the most part, the chemical elements that will be dissolved in water are generally preordained by their abundance. For example, the average abundance of the most common chemical elements in the earth’s crust (in decreasing order of abundance, see Appendix 1-1) are oxygen (O), silica (Si), aluminum (Al), iron (Fe), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), magnesium (Mg), and potassium (K). These first eight elements are the building blocks of the most common minerals that make up the earth’s crust. The next 20 most common elements are titanium (Ti), hydrogen (H), phosphors (P), manganese (Mn), fluorine (F), barium (Ba), strontium (Sr), sulfur (S), carbon (C), zirconium (Zr), vanadium (V), and chlorine (Cl). All combined, these 28 elements make up 99.93 percent of the earth’s crust.

Therefore, it would be anticipated that natural water would contain some or most of these dissolved elements. Based on the natural properties of water (H2O) and the properties of each chemical element and mineral combination, the actual occurrence and concentration of an element in water can vary widely. When minerals dissolve in water, the chemical elements are usually ionized (i.e., they form a charged chemical species called an ion). These ions occur as either cations (a positively charged ion) or as anions (a negatively charged ion). The major cations and anions that occur in both surface water and groundwater are given in Table 1-1. These common ions usually occur in water at levels measured in the part-per-million³ range.

TABLE 1-1

Major Cations and Anions Found in Natural Water

Another crucial chemical property of water is its relative acidity or alkalinity. This chemical characteristic has a direct influence on the concentration of minor elements and trace elements⁴ that can occur in natural water. For example, acid water will generally tend to have more dissolved trace elements at higher concentrations than alkaline water. Therefore, it is important that the relative acidity or alkalinity be measured by determining the pH. The pH of water is the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration. Although this is the exact definition, it is more important to understand its meaning in everyday use. Therefore, it is necessary to define the common terms associated with this measured value.

Since the 17th century, acids have been described as substances with a sour taste and the ability to dissolve many different substances. Recently, the simplest chemical definition of an acid was proposed by Arrhenius⁵ to be a substance containing hydrogen, which, upon its dissolution in water, gives off hydrogen ions (H+) into solution. This is illustrated by Equation 1-1, which represents sulfuric acid dissolved in water.

(1-1)

In this case, one molecule of sulfuric acid yields two hydrogen ions and one sulfate ion.

Bases have been described as substances that when dissolved in water feel soapy or slippery (that is because your skin is being dissolved), have a bitter taste, and can neutralize acids. According to Arrhenius, a base is a substance that gives free hydroxide ions (OH−) when dissolved in water. For example, the ionization of calcium hydroxide would be represented by Equation 1-2.

(1-2)

In this case, one molecule of calcium hydroxide yields one calcium ion and two hydroxide ions.

If an acid and base are mixed in equal proportion, the hydrogen ion and hydroxide ion will combine to form water so that there is no hydrogen or hydroxide ions dissolved in water. When such a reaction occurs the water is not acid or alkaline but neutral. For example, a neutralization reaction between sulfuric acid and calcium hydroxide is represented by Equation 1-3.

(1-3)

In this reaction, the hydrogen and hydroxide ions form water, and the calcium and sulfate ions form a solid precipitate of calcium sulfate (i.e., a white mineral called gypsum). If the pH were measured after the reaction was compete, the pH would be 7. If more hydrogen ions were added in excess of the available hydroxide ions for the neutralization reaction, the water would be acidic and the pH would measure less than 7 (i.e., the more acid the water the lower the pH). If the opposite were true and more hydroxide ions were added in excess of the available hydrogen ions for the neutralization reaction, the water would be alkaline and the pH would be greater than 7 (i.e., the more alkaline the water the higher the pH). These pH relationships are illustrated in Figure 1-2.

FIGURE 1-2 pH.

One of the most widespread and common mineral reactions that will influence the pH of natural water is the dissolution of carbonate rocks or sediment cemented by carbonates. For example, when limestone (primarily composed of calcium carbonate) and dolomite (dominated by a calcium-magnesium carbonate) contact water, some portion of these rocks will be dissolved. When calcite (a calcium carbonate mineral) comes in contact with water, some portion of that mineral will be dissolved, as shown in Equation 1-4.

(1-4)

In this reaction, one molecule of calcium carbonate dissolves in water to yield one calcium ion, one bicarbonate ion, and one hydroxide ion. Water in contact with carbonate rocks will usually have a pH around 8.5.

Other common silicate minerals that occur in soil and rock (e.g., albite, orthoclase, hornblende, augite, and biotite) will also react with water. This reaction will add metals such as Ca, Mg, Na, and K and hydroxide back into the water. An example of this reaction is shown in Equation 1-5.

(1-5)

The reaction of water in contact with both carbonate and silicate minerals in rock and soil tend to produce natural water that is alkaline. Because these minerals make up a large portion of the earth’s crust, natural waters at and below the earth’s surface tend to be alkaline. The one major exception occurs when iron sulfide minerals come into contact with water and oxygen. In some geologic environments, an abundance of iron sulfide minerals occurs in coal, oil shale, and economic ore deposits (e.g., gold, silver, zinc, copper, and lead deposits). When iron sulfide minerals in a coal or ore deposit react with water and oxygen, sulfuric acid will be produced. Therefore, water from coal and ore deposits can be acidic (i.e., have a pH less than 5). These waters also tend to contain elevated concentrations of aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, nickel, and zinc.

The pH of natural water is not only influenced by chemical reactions with minerals in soil and rock but also by the atmosphere. Water in contact with the atmosphere (i.e., surface water and shallow groundwater) will absorb carbon dioxide from the air. The resulting chemical reactions are given in Equations 1-6 and 1-7.

(1-6)

(1-7)

The resulting acid-forming reaction causes natural rainwater to be slightly acidic (approximate pH of 5.7). However, as previously discussed, when this slightly acid water contacts most soil and rock the acidity can be neutralized. This means that because of all the potential chemical reactions that can occur, the pH of natural water usually ranges from 6 to 9.

As a consequence of elemental abundances, mineral variations and reactions of water within the environment, the actual chemistry of natural water can be highly variable. In the United States, one of the first summaries of this variability in regional water quality for both surface water and groundwater was compiled by Clarke, in 1908, from water samples taken from approximately 1880 through 1905. The data taken from Clark (1908) and summarized in Table 1-2 can be considered to generally represent the natural mineral content of river water before the explosive growth of the chemical industry in the early 1900s. The data in Table 1-2 are representative of river waters in the United States and around the world. These data show that, for the most part, river water is dominated by calcium and bicarbonate. This result is consistent with rock-weathering trends (i.e., Fe, Al, and Si tend to occur in less water-soluble minerals), the influence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on water chemistry, and the common occurrence of calcium carbonate minerals in rock and soil. These data generally show that metal cation concentrations have the sequence Ca > Na > Mg > K > Fe and Al, while the anion concentration sequence is HCO3 > SO4 > Cl.

TABLE 1-2

National and International Data on the Mineral Content of River Water

*Elemental data for Na and K are combined and Fe and Al are combined.

nr = not reported.

Adapted from Clark, 1908.

Clark (1908) also provided data on the chemistry of groundwater, but focused on mineral water from springs and wells, as they have the greatest commercial importance. According to Clark (1908), all springs are mineral springs, for all contain mineral impurities; but in a popular sense the term is restricted to waters of abnormal or unusual composition. The analyses provided by Clark (1908) are grouped by the dominant anion (i.e., chloride, sulfate, bicarbonate). Representative mineral waters are given in Table 1-3, Chloride Dominated, Table 1-4, Sulfate Dominated, Table 1-5, Bicarbonate Dominated, and Table 1-6, Mixed Anion Dominated. These data demonstrate that there can be fairly significant variations in the number and concentration of chemical constituents in water around the world. Yet the chemical similarities of water should not be surprising given their contact with the earth’s crust.

TABLE 1-3

National and International Data on Chloride Dominated Mineral Waters

nr = not reported.

Adapted from Clark, 1908.

TABLE 1-4

National and International Data on Sulfate Dominated Mineral Waters

nr = not reported.

(Adapted from Clark, 1908)

TABLE 1-5

National and International Data on Carbonate Dominated Mineral Waters

nr = not reported.

(Adapted from Clark, 1908)

TABLE 1-6

National and International Data on Mixed Anion Mineral Waters

nr = not reported.

Adapted from Clark, 1908.

The chemical data reported by Langmuir (1997) (Table 1-7) also show that surface water and groundwater are dominated by bicarbonate and calcium. In other words, with all their variability, natural water can be anticipated to contain the major chemical constituents shown in Table 1-7. The only unknowns are their actual concentrations. As shown by Clark (1908), some water can contain elevated concentrations of dissolved minerals. In those special cases, where chemical constituents dissolved in groundwater exceed 250 mg/L, this groundwater is defined as a mineral water.

TABLE 1-7

Water Chemistry of Natural Water