ANALYSIS OF ROCK STRESS AROUND A LIQUID WASTE INJECTION SYSTEM IN ILLINOIS1

: The danger to the environment associated with the injection of liquid industrial wastes into a deep, confined, subsurface rock formation may arise from the transport of the waste laterally or vertically in the formation. The pattern of lateral transport, which can take place as a result of convection as well as dispersion and diffusion, can be determined by an approximate analytical solution to the mass transport equation. Vertical transport may take place through both natural fractures and fractures created by hydrostatic stresses generated around the well during injection. To determine the stresses, we used the finite element method to get a numerical solution of the flow equation. We applied a solution of the flow equation to calculate the stress buildup and decay for the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation's injection well near Hennepin in Putnam County, Illinois. According to our computations, the stress buildup due to injection is about 0.16 pounds per square inch per foot - psi - (0.362 Newton per square centimeter per meter), which, added to normal pressure, makes an estimated total stress of 0.60 psi/ft (1.36 Newton/cm²/m). That pressure is insufficient to cause fracturing of the Cambrian Eau Claire aquitard, the confining bed for the disposal zone.     

The 1976 outbreak of Hog Cholera in New Jersey: An application of geology to a biological emergency

Hog cholera is a highly contagious virus disease of swine. Since 1962, a Hog Cholera Eradication Program has replaced vaccination as the control mechanism in the U.S. Because the cholera agent requires a live host to thrive, quarantine and herd depopulation are ordered at every U.S. outbreak. The results have been positive and dramatic.The presence of hog cholera was confirmed in Gloucester County, New Jersey, on February 26, 1976. A cooperative State-Federal task force was mobilized to contain and eliminate the infection. Burial would be the disposal technique. For the first time a geologist was requested to augment outbreak control, with responsibility to pinpoint safe burial sites for thousands of animals. USDA emergency policy and procedures limited the options of the assisting geologist, but basic geologic judgments sufficed during appraisals of burial sites. Ultimately, 10 sites were needed and used; other locations proposed during the course of the outbreak were judged hydrogeologically unsuitable and were therefore rejected. Each excavation was sited to minimize potential impact on local aquifers, chiefly by maintaining maximum separation from the water table and by prudent siting within the hydrogeology of the outbreak area.From the first positive confirmation to the end of the active outbreak, a period of four weeks, 15,741 swine totaling over 1 million kg were destroyed and buried. The resulting indemnity was just under $3 million. Because of effective cooperative action during the New Jersey incident, geologic appraisal during large U.S. livestock depopulations now promises to become standard procedure.     

WATER QUALITY ANALYSIS OF THE HALIFAX RIVER,FLORIDA1

ABSTRACT: An application of the receiving water block of the EPA Storm Water management Model (SWMM) is presented to quantify water quality impacts and evaluated control alternatives for a 208 areawide waste water management plan in Volusia Country, Florida. The water quality impact analyses were conducted for dry-and wet-weather conditions to simulate dissolved oxygen (DO), chlorides, total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) in the Halifax Rivers, Florida, a 40-kilometer-long tidal estuary located on the Atlantic coast of Florida near Daytona Beach. Dry-weather analysis was performed using conventional 7-day, 10-year low flow conditions to determine a set of unit transfer coefficients which estimate the pollutant concentration transferred to any point in the estuary from a constant unit discharge of pollutants at the existing waste water treatment plant outfall locations. Wet-weather analysis was performed by continuous simulation of a typical three-month summer wet season in Florida. Three-month cumulative duration curves of DO, TN and TP concentrations were constructed to estimate the relative value of controlling urban runoff of waste water treatment plant effluent on the Halifax River. The three-month continuous simulation indicated that the greatest change in DO, TN, and TP duration curves is possible by abatement of waste water treatment plant pollution.     

Air quality assessment for land disposal of industrial wastes

Air pollution from hazardous waste landfills and lagoons is largely unknown. Routine monitoring of toxic air contaminants associated with hazardous waste facilities is difficult and very costly. The method presented in this paper would be useful for air quality assessment in the absence of monitoring data. It may be used as a screening process to examine the question of whether or not volatilization is considered to be significant for a given contaminant and also to evaluate permit applications for new hazardous waste facilities concerning waste volatilization problems.     

Recent trends in recycling activities and waste management in Japan

Japan's basic approach to municipal solid waste (MSW) is (1) waste reduction, (2) promotion of recycling, (3) volume reduction by intermediate treatment, and (4) environmentally sound final disposal. A brief history of legislative trends in waste management is given as background for current waste management and recycling activities. The material recovery rate for MSW collected by local municipalities was only 5.6% in 1996. More than half of MSW, on a volume basis, consists of containers and packages, while great amounts of landfill space are also taken up by bulky wastes such as electric appliances. Therefore, in order to promote recycling and decrease landfill waste, Japan is targeting containers, packages, and electric appliances. A law promoting separate collection and recycling of containers and packages (Packaging Waste Recycling Law) and a law requiring the recycling of specific home electric appliances into new products (Home Electric Appliance Recycling Law) were introduced in June 1995 and June 1998, respectively. These laws are in line with the OECD policy Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Received: September 16, 1998 / Accepted: March 10, 1999     

Minimizing Impacts of Maintenance Dredged Material Disposal in the Coastal Environment: A Habitat Approach

At present, coastal disposal of maintenance dredged material constitutes one of the most important problems in coastal zone management and in some coastal areas represents the major anthropogenic disturbance to the benthos. In this review we first propose, based on the classic literature, that macrofaunal communities typical of environmentally stressed habitats are more resilient than those of more environmentally stable habitats, and we outline the macrofaunal successional changes following a disturbance. Second, from a review and analysis of the published and unpublished literature on macrofaunal recovery following maintenance dredged material deposition in the coastal environment, we compare the successional sequences and recovery rates in euhaline and polyhaline systems. The review reveals that invertebrate recovery following dredged material disposal in relatively unstressed marine environments generally takes between 1 and 4 years, while in more naturally stressed areas, recovery is generally achieved within 9 months, although deeper polyhaline habitats can take up to 2 years to recover. Differences in recovery times are attributed to the number of successional stages required to regain the original community composition and that species typical of naturally unstressed assemblages do not possess life-history traits to allow rapid recolonization of disturbances. In the last section of this review, the management implications of these findings are discussed in terms of minimizing dredged material disposal impacts on fisheries resources. Since the natural disturbance regime appears to be very important in determining the response of a benthic community following dredged material disposal, it is recommended that when predicting the potential environmental impact of an operation, the nature of the physical environment in combination with the status (and role) of associated marine benthic communities should be considered.     

范庄油田污水处理工艺的改进

系统分析了范庄油田污水处理中水质状况,找出了不达标的原因,提出了如下改进方案:合理加药,强化除油,加强沉降,严格过滤,自动排污,改善收油系统,改进处理工艺流程。实施改进措施后,有效地减少了地层污染,提高了污水回注率,避免了污水外排,同时还减轻了一线工人的劳动强度。     

浅谈另类生活垃圾的处理问题

随着社会文明的高速发展，越来越多的高科技新兴产品渗入人们的生活，带给人们更多的方便和享受，从而也使城市生活垃圾结构发生了很大的改变，废电池、废电冰箱、废电脑等家用电器及其废物的另类生活垃圾成为今天新的环境问题。另类生活垃圾成份复杂，对环境产生的影响大、影响时间长、回收价值高，在发达国家已建立了较完善的管理和处置系统，我国在这方面的工作刚刚起步。本文就国外另类生活垃圾的处理及我省的处理处置情况及规划设想进行了介绍。     

论大开发背景下西部地区城市垃圾的处置和管理

论述了随着西部大开发的深入和西部城市的大发展，西部城市垃圾的产生机制和特征将发生很大变化。西部城市现行城市垃圾处置和管理体制必须进行改革才能适应新的形势，并进一步提出了西部地区城市垃圾适宜的处置策略和管理机制。     

电絮凝处理油田废水初步研究

采用电絮凝法处理油田废水，考察了电流强度、PAC投加量、电极板间距和pH值对废水脱油率的影响。正交实验表明，pH值和电流强度是影响废水脱油率的两个最显著因素。在选定的条件下进行电絮凝实验，废水脱油率达到84.3％。