Antibiotics are commonly used in animal agriculture to treat and prevent diseases and promote growth. Unfortunately, large amounts of antibiotics are not metabolized, but instead are excreted in urine and feces. Rainfall simulation studies were used to investigate the transport of the antibiotic oxytetracycline and various constituents in runoff and the ability of alum to reduce pollutant transport. Runoff samples were collected at several points during the simulated storm event from each of four treatments: control (C), manure only (M), manure and antibiotics (MA), and manure, antibiotics and alum (MAA). Flow-weighted composite samples were created and compared to the flow weighted mean concentration (FWMC). Constituents with concentrations well-above the detection limits (E. coli, NH4-N, turbidity, TSS, TOC, and EC) showed a strong correlation between flow-weighted composite samples and FWMC. When constituent concentrations were at or near the detection limits, errors associated with the composite samples were magnified. Oxytetracycline concentrations had the strong correlation to E. coli, Cl, TOC, TSS, and turbidity suggesting that a BMP effective at trapping sediment or particulates may work best for reducing oxytetracycline concentrations in runoff. Alum (1%) did not reduce levels of oxytetracycline in runoff. It is recommended that higher doses of alum be tested.

No description available.

Conventional drinking water treatment consists of a coagulation, flocculation, gravity separation, filtration and disinfection processes each working individually but also as an interdependent system. One of the main reagents used for drinking water treatment are coagulants that destabilise the suspended particles which results in the formation of flocs. For many years, the coagulant of choice was aluminum sulphate, also know as alum. Alum has slowly been replaced by new coagulants, such as polyalumium sulphates and polyaluminum chlorides, because they yield more consistent plant performance than with alum over the wide temperature range experienced by Canadian treatment plants. Recent research has determined that the alum solubility envelop varied significantly in terms of pH range with temperature, thus cold temperature performance may be improved by adjusting the coagulation pH. Dissolved air flotation (DAF) is now used at some water treatment plants to replace sedimentation because it is much more compact than gravity settling, and it is somewhat better than sedimentation for the removal of algae, organics and operation in cold temperatures. The objective of this thesis is to help operators and managers of drinking water treatment plants incorporating DAF by: a) investigating the cold water turbidity removals of DAF systems using alum, the most economical coagulant; and b) investigating the impact of DAF saturator pressure on the bubble sizes produced and floc removal. This first initiative is based on fairly recent research on the impact of pH on the cold-temperature aluminum solubility. It uses this knowledge about the impact of pH to evaluate DAF treatment of Ottawa River water in cold-water conditions using DAF batch tests. The effect of pH against final turbidity at cold temperatures was first evaluated by increasing the pH of the coagulated water, the higher pH helped attain good turbidity removals. For the coagulant dose tested, good turbidity removals were observed for both warm and cold waters at nearly the same pOH conditions. At room temperature the turbidity removals increase with both increasing flocculation G and flocculation time. While at cold temperatures, when aluminum flocs are known to be much more fragile, the turbidity removals appear to be independent of G and GT. The second initiative studied the relationship between floc size and bubble size in DAF systems by changing the DAF saturator pressure. Increasing the saturator pressure did not significantly decrease the mean bubble size. The flocs attach to bubbles that were significantly larger than the bubbles. The assessment of DAF efficiency based on the unitized effluent floc distribution proved inconclusive, it may be possible that the conditions resulting with the larger mean effluent floc size has a greater removal efficiency since it began with a smaller fraction of small flocs entering the flotation stage.

Fuel shortage during the Second World War led to oil production in Kvarntorp, Kumla during 1942-1966 by pyrolyzing alum shale rich in pyrite, FeS2, and organic material such as kerogen. This production has led to a lot of waste laying deposited out in the open after the mining closed and has had negative environmental impact in the form of ongoing weathering and leaching of acidic water and leaching of trace elements into its surroundings. Chemical processes are still ongoing in this deposit, with temperatures reaching 700 °C on certain hotspots. Once the deposit cools down, precipitation will be able to enter the deposit and start leaching acidic water containing trace elements that will risk polluting groundwater in the surrounding areas. No one knows how many years it will take for the deposit to cool down, but it has been estimated to take at least 100 years.This study did leaching experiments on weathered fines as well as red ash in large columns while being oxygenated. Analyses consisted of ICP-MS, pH, electrical conductivity, acidity, alkalinity, and sulphate concentration.The results showed high concentrations of many valuable and potentially toxic elements in the leachates especially higher amounts of copper compared to previous studies.

Previous research relating to alum sludge land application has primarily been restricted to laboratory studies of short-term environmental effects. In general, most research has concluded that the environmental effects of alum sludge constituents can be easily controlled. This study investigated the fate of land-applied alum sludge constituents nearly three years after incorporation into a Slagle soil. An existing field site was used. The site had been used for a pilot study examining the land application of alum sludge from the Harwood's Mill Water Treatment Plant in Newport News, Virginia. Alum sludge and lime were applied to the site in November, 1989. Soil, soilwater, groundwater and pine needle tissue media were sampled during the summer of 1992. It was determined that the alum sludge posed no observable long-term threat to groundwater quality or vegetative productivity. Migration of alum sludge constituents through the soil profile could not be confirmed in this research. However, acid precipitation may have destroyed the alkalinity added to the soil. Thus, long-term management of alum sludge land application to acid soils may require additional increments of alkalinity. / Master of Science

Human enteric viruses are present at low levels in sources of potable water. Due to the low minimum infective dose required for such viruses, these low levels are of public health significance and will become more important as water reuse increases. The effectiveness of alum coagulation for virus removal was evaluated using a synthetic water seeded with monodispersed poliovirus LScl. Experiments were done using 10(3),10(4),10(6) Plaque Forming Units (PFU) per liter. A microporous filter concentration technique was used post treatment to increase the virus titer to make possible virus enumeration by plaque assay on BGM cell cultures. Preliminary work was done to determine the efficiency of the concentration technique at 10(3),10(4),10(6)and PFU per liter. An average of 30.9 per cent of the original PFU were recovered. Two coagulation test methods were used at the lower virus titers. In one, virus was added to the system after the coagulant during the flash mix period and in the other, the coagulant was added to water already seeded with virus. Removals were similar for both conditions. Alum coagulation was found to remove 95 percent of the virus present at the low titers. This efficiency of virus removal is similar to that observed at high initial virus titers. Therefore, it appears that alum coagulation is an effective virus removal method. / Master of Science

Research efforts pertaining to natural organic material (NOM) have focused primarily on the dissolved portion of NOM since it is the most prevalent fraction. Numerous procedures have been developed to separate dissolved organic material (DOM) into fractions but methods were not fully refined in the areas of quantitative analysis, DOM recovery, and DOM isolation. This research chemically and physically characterized DOM using synthetic resin adsorption and ultrafiltration, respectively. A 0.45 μm filter separated the NOM into particulate and nonparticulate fractions prior to characterization. The DOM of two natural waters were fractionated into six separate organic fractions (hydrophobic bases, acids, neutrals and hydrophilic bases, acids, neutrals). Apparent molecular weight distributions were performed on the two natural waters and six organic fractions via ultrafiltration. The effects of pH on coagulation removal efficiency were investigated on four of the organic fractions (acidic and neutral). A procedure was developed to investigate the synergistic/antagonistic effects of the hydrophobic acid fraction and the hydrophobic neutral fraction on each other during coagulation. Ultrafilters (30K and 100K nominal molecular weight cutoff) were utilized to analyze the phase-change behavior of DOM during coagulation. Results indicated the coagulation pH affected the removal of the organic acidic fractions but not the neutral fractions. A further study showed poorer removal of the hydrophobic neutral fraction resulting from the greater presence of the hydrophobic acid fraction in a solution composed of the two fractions and vice versa. At less than enhanced doses of both alum and ferric chloride there existed the presence of colloidal metal bound organic material. This colloidal fraction can be effectively removed by the addition of a nonionic polymer, providing a cost effective alternative to the higher coagulant doses often required to achieve enhanced coagulation of surface waters. / Master of Science

The dewatering of arsenic-containing residuals is a process that has received little study in the past. Arsenic that has been removed from water by sorption to ferric or aluminum hydroxides can accumulate in residuals to concentrations many times higher than in the source water. The first part of this study evaluates the effectiveness of lime conditioning as a method for immobilizing this arsenic. As the pH is increased with addition of caustic soda or soda ash, soluble arsenic concentration increases dramatically. However, as the pH is increased with lime, very little arsenic is released back into the water. On the basis of previous research this phenomenon might be attributed to the formation of a calcium arsenate solid. However, this study indicates it is more likely that the soluble calcium neutralizes the negative surface charge on the hydroxide solids at high pH and enhances arsenic sorption compared to when calcium was absent. In many cases arsenic-containing residuals are stored in lagoons and allowed to reside there for months or even years. Many parameters may affect the soluble arsenic concentration and speciation in these lagoons. The second portion of this study gives some baseline conditions for these lagoons, both with and without microbial activity and biological organic matter. In these practical situations it appears that lime can assist in keeping arsenic sorbed to the solids and prevent its release to the environment. / Master of Science

No description available.

A new locality of the Alum Shale Formation at Björnberget, Västerbotten County, of the lower allochthon of the Caledonian front is described herein. Two new species of acrotretid brachiopods were found. Tingitanella vilhelminia n. sp. adds another species to the monospecific genus. T. vilhelminia also extend the genus distribution to Sweden. Anabolotreta furcatus n. sp. is the first member of the genus found in Sweden and extend the stratigraphic range to Stage 5 of Cambrian Series 3. It also exhibits an unusual bifurcating shell structure described for the first time herein. One trilobite was found at the locality, Acadoparadoxides torelli, indicating that the exposures at Björnberget belong to the upper Acadoparadoxides (Baltoparadoxides) oelandicus superzone. The fauna found is impoverished in comparison to the fauna that has been described from Jämtland and reflects the depositional environment on the deep outer shelf with low sediment input. The known exposure at Granberget, close to Björnberget, is described with respect to the paleontology and sedimentology of the section. The fauna at Granberget could be extended with two new species of agnostids, Hypagnostus lingula and Hypagnostus mammillatus, to a total of six taxa of trilobites. The depositional environment was periodically affected by storms, depositing limestone layers composed of skeletal material. The Alum shale does not exhibit these sedimentary structures and have probably lost the majority of the them during diagenesis. / En hitintills obeskriven lokal av Alunskifferformationen vid Björnberget, Västerbottens län, beskrivs här med fokus på paleontologi och sedimentologi. Två nya arter av brachiopoder (Acrotretida) upptäcktes. Tingitanella vilhelminia n. sp. utökar släktet med ytterligare en art och utökar även den geografiska distributionen av släktet till Sverige. Anabolotreta furcatus n. sp. är den första medlemmen av släktet som beskrivits från Sverige och utökar den stratigrafiska spännvidden till lägre mellersta Kambrium. A. furcatus har även en skalstruktur med förgrenande pelare som beskrivs för första gången. En trilobit upptäcktes vid lokalen, Acadoparadoxides torelli, vilket tyder på att exponeringarna vid Björnberget tillhör övre delen av superzonen Acadoparadoxides (Baltoparadoxides) oelandicus. Faunan är artfattig i jämförelse med vad som tidigare har beskrivits från Jämtland och reflekterar en depositionsmiljö på den yttre kontinentalsockeln med ett lågt inflöde av klastiska sediment. Den sedan tidigare kända lokalen vid Granberget, nära lokalen vid Björnberget, beskrivs häri med avseende på paleontologi och sedimentologi. Faunan vid Granberget kan utökas med två nya arter av agnostider, Hypagnostus lingula och Hypagnostus mammillatus, till att totalt innehålla sex arter av trilobiter. Depositionsmiljön påverkades periodvis av stormar som avsatte kalkstenslager bestående av skelettdelar. Alunskiffern har förlorat majoriteten av dessa strukturer under diagenes som annars återfinns i kalkstenskonkretionerna.