Effects of oil contamination on plant growth and development: a review

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Oil spills generate several environmental impacts and have become more common with the increase in petroleum extraction, refining, transportation, and...     

Geochemical evaluation and human health risk assessment of nitrate-contaminated groundwater in an industrial area of South India

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The primary goal of this study is to evaluate the groundwater quality and conduct a non-carcinogenic risk assessment of nitrate contamination in an...     

The legacy of lead pollution: (dis)trust in science and the debate over Superfund

Lead contamination is a significant health hazard in communities around the world, but this environmental toxin often remains unknown to residents living near hazardous sites. This research investigates a unique case where residents were informed of lead contamination but rejected official and scientific narratives regarding environmental risks. The case study involves a decommissioned smelter in Colorado. Drawing from data collected over three years, the researchers examine how officials and experts communicated the severity of environmental health hazards. Despite these efforts, residents opposed the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempts to place the site on the National Priorities List for federal cleanup. The government’s framing of science and environmental risk failed to resonate with homeowners, despite the known and significant scientific evidence confirming environmental health hazards, and residents’ perceptions of lead contamination were mitigated by material concerns, including property values and community stigma. Implications for future research on lead contamination, environmental risk, and trust in science are discussed.     

Issues,behavioral responses and consequences in interpersonal conflicts

This paper reports on a study of interpersonal conflicts in the workplace using a process model proposed by Thomas (1992) as a framework. Three stages of this model are examined: the issues involved, the behavioral responses elicited, and the personal consequences. The relationship of issues and behaviors to consequences is determined within the context of the organizational positions of the parties (supervisor, subordinate, co-worker).     

NUTRIENT CONTRIBUTION OF NONPOINT SOURCE RUNOFF IN THE LAS VEGAS VALLEY1

ABSTRACT: A Geographic Information System (GIS) based non‐point source runoff model is developed for the Las Vegas Valley, Nevada, to estimate the nutrient loads during the years 2000 and 2001. The estimated nonpoint source loads are compared with current wastewater treatment facilities loads to determine the non‐point source contribution of total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and total suspended solids (TSS) on a monthly and annual time scale. An innovative calibration procedure is used to estimate the pollutant concentrations for different land uses based on available water quality data at the outlet. Results indicate that the pollutant concentrations are higher for the Las Vegas Valley than previous published values for semi‐arid and arid regions. The total TP and TN loads from nonpoint sources are approximately 15 percent and 4 percent, respectively, of the total load to the receiving water body, Lake Mead. The TP loads during wet periods approach the permitted loads from the wastewater treatment plants that discharge into Las Vegas Wash. In addition, the GIS model is used to track pollutant loads in the stream channels for one of the subwatersheds. This is useful for planning the location of Best Management Practices to control nonpoint pollutant loads.     

A non-equilibrium approach to modeling metal speciation in acid,aquatic systems: theory and process equations

A general algorithm (NONEQUI) was developed to simulate reversible sorption and ion exchange kinetics among a variety of heavy metals and substrates in acid (pH < 6.5) lake or stream environments. Competitive metal-substrate and substrate-substrate interactions are modeled as kinetic processes rather than invoking an instantaneous equilibrium assumption. This distinction from other models offers certain advantages when attempting to predict the fate, speciation, transport and ultimately biological effects of toxic metals in dynamic media such as lakes and streams.