Soil and groundwater fecal contamination as a result of sewage sludge land application.

Aneta Łuczkiewicz; Bernard Quant

Soil and groundwater fecal contamination as a result of sewage sludge land application.

Abstract

The release of sludge-born bacteria and their further transport in subsurface was studied. The migration of bacteria was investigated in column experiments which were carried out under the conditions corresponding to naturally occurring extreme rainfall. Coal fly ash as well as coarse and medium grained sand, which properties are similar to the soils present in degraded areas, were used as column beds. Sewage sludge was applied on the top of column beds in the quantity corresponding to the best land-reclamation practice. Clostridium perfringens and fecal coliforms were used as bio-tracers of fecal pollution. The obtained results showed the dynamic of bacterial cells' leaching from the sludge matrix, and the dynamic of their infiltration through the column beds to the effluents. The bacterial breakthrough curves obtained for the fly ash and for the sandy media differ significantly, reflecting the differences in transport processes and in the survival of bacterial cells. It has been found out that the fly ash layer, whose thickness equals 0.80 m, can be regarded as an effective filter, which limits bacterial migration. When sludge is applied to the sandy soils, about 0.02% of the initial number of sludge bacteria can migrate downwards the soil profile of the same thickness as that of fly ash which can cause contamination of potentially shallow aquifers.

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Category:: Articles
Type:: artykuł w czasopiśmie z listy filadelfijskiej
Published in:: POLISH JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES no. 16, pages 587 - 593,
ISSN: 1230-1485
Language:: English
Publication year:: 2007
Bibliographic description:: Łuczkiewicz A., Quant B.: Soil and groundwater fecal contamination as a result of sewage sludge land application.// POLISH JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES. -Vol. 16., nr. nr 4 (2007), s.587-593
Verified by:: Gdańsk University of Technology