Ozone and Radionuclide Correlations In Air of Marine Trajectory At Quillayute,Washington

A large number of radioactive and non-radioactive airborne constituents are being measured continually at our coastal air reference station located in northwestern Washington State. Important correlations have been observed between many of these materials. There are also apparent relationships between changing concentrations and meteorological parameters. Interesting fluctuations in the ozone levels with incoming clean air masses may help explain some of the high ozone levels observed by workers elsewhere. Positive correlations between certain known high altitude source region particulate radionuclides and ozone on a daily basis point to the upper level origin of the higher ozone concentrations observed at this site. This view is reinforced by the more usual negative correlations observed between general particulate levels at Quillayute and ozone concentrations when measured on a continuous monitoring basis.     

THE EFFECTS OF AGE AND WATER FLUCTUATIONS ON FISH POPULATIONS1

ABSTRACT Two lakes having similar soil types were studied to determine the effects of age and water fluctuations on plankton, benthos and fish populations. Bluff Lake is an older man-made lake which is drawn down in the mid-summer. Oktibbeha County Lake is a young lake and the water levels are maintained. Chemistry data from the two lakes indicate that their chemical properties are very similar. Neither lake would be considered very fertile. Net plankton populations in Bluff Lake and Oktibbeha County Lake were comparable when analyzed on a number of organisms per liter basis. Fluctuations of water levels did not seem to have an effect on the net plankton populations. The benthic population in Bluff Lake is slightly higher than that found in Oktibbeha County Lake. This is true for both numbers and weight per square meter. The species composition of benthic organisms in the two lakes were similar. Based on one-acre samples from each lake, Bluff Lake has a more balanced fish population than does Oktibbeha County Lake. Neither, however, seems to support populations of game fish in which a high percentage of these are in the available or harvestable range. Both lakes contain high populations of gizzard shad.     

ISO 14001 EMS implementation planning

In 1996, the International Standards Organization (ISO) completed work on an environmental management system (EMS) standard: ISO 14001. The standard involves only five required elements, spans less than five pages, and upon initial review, appears relatively uncomplicated. As well, many of the ISO 14001 requirements may already be present in an organization's existing EMS. Nevertheless, the new standard presents a number of challenges to industry implementation. Whether an organization aims to start from scratch in developing an EMS under ISO 14001 or modify its existing EMS to meet the ISO challenge, implementation requires careful planning and analysis. This article provides a summary of the planning required to implement ISO 14001 at the facility level, including the initial planning effort and the identification of significant environmental impacts, objectives, and targets. The aim will be to eliminate some of the “hype” associated with ISO and provide some practical “how to” guidance for implementing the standard. The discussion begins with an overview of the initial planning effort and then turns to key planning requirements.     

I. Ragweed Pollen as Air Pollution

By their land use practices the agricultural and construction industries are unwittingly causing an increase in atmospheric pollution by aeroallergens such as ragweed pollen. This public health problem is discussed in the following four papers by an interdisciplinary team. Possible remedies are described.     

Remedial Options for Leaking Underground Storage Tanks

Remedial options for leaking underground storage tanks were investigated in a joint project of the Electric Power Research Institute and the Underground Storage Tank Committee of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group. Both existing and emerging technologies were examined. Thirteen remedial techniques were identified and initially characterized as in situ or non-in situ. In situ methods include volatilization, biodegradation, leaching and chemical reaction, vitrification, passive remediation, and isolation or containment. Non-in situ techniques include land treatment, thermal treatment, asphalt incorporation, solidification and stabilization, groundwater extraction and treatment, chemical extraction, and excavation. Soil and groundwater remediation problems have many site-specific considerations which must be considered in choosing an appropriate remedial option; these include cleanup goals, site and contaminant characteristics, cost, exposure pathways, and others. Appropriate remedial techniques are chosen by assessing technical, implementational, environmental and economic considerations of each available option to achieve the desired cleanup goal at the specified site.     

Characterization of microbial consortia that reductively dechlorinate 4-chlorophenol and transform phenol to benzoate enriched from estuarine sediment of Lake Shinji

Monochlorophenols were degraded to benzoate via phenol by the initial dechlorination and the subsequent conversion of phenol to benzoate in anaerobic sediment samples of estuarine Lake Shinji under methanogenic conditions. To characterize bacteria that dechlorinate 4-chlorophenol and transform phenol to benzoate, we analyzed the microbial community structure of the enrichment culture with each 4-chlorophenol and phenol by the limiting dilution method with polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) of 16S rRNA gene. After serial dilution of the culture, the 4-chlorophenol-dechlorinating culture consisted of two dominant bacteria, one of which was most homologous with Dehalobacter sp. In the enriched culture with phenol, minor band homologous with Cryptanaerobacter phenolicass corresponded to the transformation activity.     

Sorption of carbamazepine, 17α-ethinylestradiol, iopromide and trimethoprim to biomass involves interactions with exocellular polymeric substances

The sorption of carbamazepine (CBZ), iopromide (IOP), trimethoprim (TMP) and 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) was evaluated using four biomass types (pure ammonia oxidizing bacterial culture, two heterotrophic enrichment cultures with varying levels of oxygenase activity, and a full-scale nitrifying activated sludge (NAS) culture). CBZ and IOP did not sorb to the four biomass types. EE2 did not sorb to the pure culture but sorbed significantly to the heterotrophic cultures and NAS. TMP sorbed to the heterotrophic cultures and NAS, and was not evaluated for the pure culture. Three floc characteristics (hydrophobicity, median particle size, organic matter content) correlated moderately well with the EE2 organic matter sorption coefficient (K_OM,EE2). Zeta potential did not correlate well with K_OM,EE2 but did with K_OM,TMP, indicating that TMP sorption is more influenced by electrostatic factors than EE2. Once divalent cation-linked exocellular polymeric substances (EPS) were removed from flocs, EE2 and TMP sorption to the non-EPS (cellular) fraction decreased by approximately 50%. The correlation between K_OM,EE2 for the non-EPS cellular fraction deteriorated while the correlation between K_OM,TMP improved. EE2 seemed to sorb more strongly to EPS protein whereas TMP sorbed equally to polysaccharide and protein EPS. Attempts to develop predictive models were not successful. Pharmaceuticals that sorbed to biomass samples underwent biodegradation whereas those that did not sorb were not biodegraded, suggesting a relationship between sorption and pharmaceutical biotransformation.     

Treatment of hydrophobic VOCs in trickling bed air biofilter: Emphasis on long-term effect of initial alternate use of hydrophilic VOCs and microbial species evolution

The main research objective of this study is to enhance the removal of recalcitrant compounds that are not readily bioavailable due to limiting mass transfer rate between the liquid and gas phases. Four trickle-bed air biofilters (TBABs), loaded with pelletized diatomaceous earth support media, were run at an empty bed residence time (EBRT) of 120 sec. After an acclimation period at constant loading rate (LR) of n-hexane (13.2 g m^?3 hr^?1) and intermittent feeding of methanol, n-hexane influent LR was then increased in step-wise fashion to 47.7 g m^?3 hr^?1 for biofilters receiving acidic nutrients (pH 4), and to 36.3 g m^?3 hr^?1 for biofilters receiving nutrient at pH 7. The results have shown that for TBABs receiving nutrient at pH 4, greater elimination capacities were obtained as compared to TBABs working at pH 7. n-Hexane removal efficiency of more than 84% at LR up to 47.7 g m^?3 hr^?1 was obtained for pH 4 nutrient-fed biofilters, while for biofilters with nutrients fed at pH 7, the removal efficiency did not exceed 64% for n-hexane LR of 36.3 g m^?3 hr^?1. The microbial analysis revealed that no fungal community was detected in TBABs run at neutral pH. The fungi communities that were initially acclimating TBABs run at pH 4, namely, Aspergillus niger and Fusarium solani, were not detected at the end of the experiment, while Gibberella moniliformis (Fusarium verticillioides) genus became the dominant species. Gibberella moniliformis (Fusarium verticillioides) was present along all the biofilter media and sustained very high n-hexane elimination at steady-state condition.

Implications:With growing apprehension about sustainability and environmental protection, with limited resources available, and with the passage of the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act, there is more need for using air pollution control techniques that are sound economically and proven environmentally friendly. Biofiltration systems, namely, trickle-bed air biofilters, were for decades recognized as efficient in treating air pollutants. Thus, the application of this technique over a wide industrial spectrum would certainly contribute to reduction of hazardous gas emissions.