contamination assessment Articles
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The Alberta Swan Hills Special Waste Treatment Centre expansion: environmental concerns
This article examines the establishment and recent expansion of the high technology special Waste Management Treatment Centre at Swan Hills, Alberta. The focus is on a number of deficiencies in the expansion application and potential negative environmental impacts that may have been inadequately assessed by the review process then existing. These concerns include weaknesses in site geology, ...
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Steps to Ensuring a Successful Audit: Effective Risk Assessment Design
Abstract When designing a process, product quality is an important measure of success. To ensure product quality, it is imperative that the environment is monitored for contamination. The best way to locate sources of contamination is via risk assessment, best performed before a process has been implemented. There are multiple tools to assist in completing a risk assessment, and once completed, ...
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Biological effects of environmental pollutants in American Oyster, Crassostrea virginica: a field study in Laguna de Terminos, Mexico
The response of Crassostrea virginica to a complex mixture of toxic contaminants was studied at four sites in Laguna de Terminos, Mexico. Contaminants assessed were heavy metals, organochlorine compounds, and hydrocarbons. Biomarkers (cholinesterase activity, neutral red retention, and metallothionein), histopathology and prevalence of Perkinsus marinus were used to evaluate the effects of ...
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Global climate change and contaminants, a call to arms not yet heard?
A consensus has existed from the mid‐2000s that climate change is occurring and is the result of anthropogenic causes (Oreskes 2004). Noyes et al. (2009) published the first description of the potential interactions between a warming environment and toxicology. Four years ago, an editorial in Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (Wenning et al. 2010) called upon members of SETAC ...
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Opportunities and challenges of integrating ecological restoration into assessment and management of contaminated ecosystems
Ecosystem restoration planning near the beginning of the site assessment and management process (“early integration”) involves consideration of restoration goals from the outset in developing solutions for contaminated ecosystems. There are limitations to integration that stem from institutional barriers, few successful precedents and limited availability of guidance. Challenges occur in ...
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Contemporary design, operation, and monitoring of potable reuse systems
Water scarcity driven by population growth, lack of conventional supplies, and climate change impacts have resulted in increasing interest worldwide in drinking water augmentation using treated wastewater effluents. Potable reuse can occur indirect or direct, but is also practiced in many places as ‘de facto reuse’, where upstream wastewater discharge occurs to drinking water ...
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Emission patterns of traffic–related metals and associated contamination in road deposited sediment
Road deposited sediment (RDS) is regarded as sinks for metal pollutants derived from road–traffic that may pose a danger for the nearby water environment. The reported study aims to analyse RDS build–up and associated metal emission patterns using Riccarton Campus of Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland as a study site. The RDS samples were collected from four different sites over a four ...
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Advanced oxidation degradation kinetics as a function of ultraviolet LED duty cycle
Ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LEDs) may be a viable option as a UV light source for advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) utilizing photocatalysts or oxidizing agents such as hydrogen peroxide. The effect of UV-LED duty cycle, expressed as the percentage of time the LED is powered, was investigated in an AOP with hydrogen peroxide, using methylene blue (MB) to assess contaminant ...
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Litter contamination processes and management perspectives on the southern Brazilian coast
Beach litter contamination has been reported internationally as a major coastal issue needing evaluation for management strategies. The extent of contamination by litter has been assessed throughout a 12-month field investigation at Cassino beach, a long and wide sandy beach of great ecological importance and a major resort area of the southern Brazilian coast. This has been the first systematic ...
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Bioavailability of copper in contaminated sediments assessed by a DGT approach and the uptake of copper by the aquatic plant Myriophyllum aquaticum
The assessment of the potentially harmful effects of metals on biota depends on the speciation and bioavailability of the metals. In this study, we investigated copper accumulation and toxicity in the aquatic plant Myriophyllum aquaticum after exposure to artificial sediments varying in peat and/or ferric hydroxide content and spiked with Cu (5 to 200 mg.kg−1). Modeling of the kinetic DGT ...
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Advanced Data Analysis Strategies for Understanding Particle Contamination in Chemical Distribution Systems
Abstract Advanced data analysis techniques can be implemented to quantitatively assess particle contamination data in state-of-the-art chemical distribution systems. Through examining the distribution of the rate of particle detection compared to Poisson’s distribution, it is possible to determine if particle variations are random or systematic and allow for the focus of improvement ...
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Cadmium sulfide quantum dots induce oxydative‐stress and behavioural impairments in the marine clam Scrobicularia plana
CdS quantum dots (CdS QDs) have a number of current applications in electronics and solar cells and significant future potential in medicine. The aim of this study was to examine the toxic effects of CdS QDs on the marine clam Scrobicularia plana exposed for 14 days to these nanomaterials (10 µg Cd L−1) in natural seawater and to compare them to soluble Cd. Measurement of labile Cd released ...
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Hydrocarbon-Contaminated Soil Remediation
Hydrocarbons are organic compounds composed of hydrogen and carbon atoms and are the building blocks of many fossil fuels. Petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel, and oil, are major sources of hydrocarbons. Spills or leaks of these products can result in soil contamination, and if left unaddressed, can have significant environmental and health impacts. In this article, we will discuss the ...
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Assessment of sediment quality and pore water ecotoxicity in Kebir Rhumel basin (NE-Algeria): a combined approach
The objectives of this study are to use different approaches to assess the current pollution status in the wadis of the Kebir Rhumel basin. First, sediment trace metal contents were measured by flame atomic absorption spectroscopy. Then, sediment quality was assessed on the basis of contamination assessment indexes such as: Geoaccumulation Index (Igeo), Contamination factor (Cf), Contamination ...
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Transitioning sediment quality assessment into regulations: Challenges and solutions in implementing California's sediment quality objectives
Development and promulgation of sediment quality criteria represents a substantial challenge for water quality agencies. Unlike water quality programs that rely on individual chemical thresholds to assess water quality, the complex processes affecting contaminant bioavailability in sediments preclude the use of contaminant concentrations to independently assess impacts or identify cause. ...
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An integrated health risk assessment of contaminated sites under aleatory and epistemic uncertainties
An integrated health risk assessment framework including contaminant transport model, exposure assessment models, physiologicallybased pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling, and dose-response assessment was developed in this paper to bridge the gap amongst environmental engineers, toxicologists, and researchers in environmental health science and to improve the comprehensive understanding of the ...
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Contamination/Environmental case study
Orlando Drum Company, Orlando, FL Facility washes and reconditions used drums Mercuri and Associates, Inc. was retained as hydrogeological consultant to verify state allegations of contamination of soil and ground water with heavy metals, pesticides, and volatile organic compounds. Initiated preliminary soil and groundwater sampling program, prepared/submitted to regulatory agency ...
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Comparison of probabilistic approaches to estimate the initial bacterial levels as a start in exposure assessment: Escherichia coli O157:H7 in beef as an example
The initial contamination of food products with pathogens is an important risk factor in microbial risk assessments. This factor contains variability and uncertainty that can be calculated from various available monitoring results. When performing dedicated quantitative risk assessments, different methods can be chosen to transform the data into probability distribution functions. This paper ...
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Validation of a new standardized test method for the freshwater amphipod Hyalella azteca: Determining the chronic effects of silver in sediment
Environment Canada has developed a new 42 day sediment toxicity test method that includes a reproduction test endpoint with the freshwater amphipod Hyalella azteca. Due to concerns that existing standard methodologies, where adults are transferred to a water‐only exposure before release of their first brood at day 28, will lead to internal contaminant depuration and loss of sensitivity, the EC ...
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Accelerating progress at contaminated sediment sites
The “top five actions” presented by Bridges et al. in “Accelerating Progress at Contaminated Sediment Sites: Moving from Guidance to Practice” (IEAM 8(2):331‐338) represent an important set of normative guidelines that could accelerate progress at contaminated sediment sites. An important next step is to use those guidelines to develop recommendations about good practices. This letter presents ...
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