Image of EPA standards provided by Travis West
When we go camping and find a creek or river, we don’t normally think of the kinds of animals, bacteria, and chemicals that could be flowing through it. There could be many natural or man-made chemicals and bacteria that could be living within the surface of the water. Contaminated water can be described as water containing a specific level of a harmful chemical or bacteria. The unfortunate part of this is, is that we aren’t able to tell whether the water is contaminated or not until it is tested, or specific health affects start to come into play.
Jennifer Harkness, a hydrologist with the California Water Center, described how these natural chemicals can get into the water. For starters, location and type of body of water can influence it. Things like type of soil, if it’s in an urban area, or if it’s near a chemical or power plant that puts chemicals into the air determines what chemicals can be found in the water. Harkness explained that shallow, surface water will be more vulnerable to and impacted from things from the surface or man. This included things like run off or people dumping things into the water. Whereas ground water is more likely to have naturally occurring chemicals.
These naturally occurring chemicals can come from the rocks that are coming in contact with the flow of water. Harkness explained that different rocks are made up of different kinds and levels of specific elements. The elements that, over time, can enter into the water are ones like arsenic, chromium, iron, and lead. However, even though it is good for humans to consume elements like iron, if it is an extreme amount, there could be health defects. For example, it could cause rashes, dehydration, digestive problems, and even things like cholera and polio.
Travis West, an Environmental Compliance Specialist within the Ambient Water Monitoring unit of the Georgia Watershed Planning and Monitoring Program, is the one who goes out and gathers the water samples for testing. West gathers the samples and sends them to a lab in Atlanta, Ga where they test for “Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen, pH, Specific Conductance, Salinity, Turbidity, Total Alkalinity, BOD-5 (5 Day Biochemical Oxygen Demand), Dissolved Organic Compounds, E-Coli, Ammonia, Nitrite, Total Suspended Solids, Total Kjeldahl, Total Organic Carbon, Hardness, Total Phosphorus, Turbidity, and Chlorophyll-A.” West says that there is a set of standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency for water quality. If the level of chemical substance falls outside of those standards, then that body of water, whether it’s a lake, river, or creek, is then flagged as impaired. West travels to these sites that he has to test once a month as it is important to keep track of those levels, especially if the water is used by civilians.
There are several different programs and departments that keep in contact such as the Department of Health, EPA, DNR, and Wildlife Resources Division to share data and create a more detailed and rounded vision of where the quality of the environment stand.