Water Quality for Consumption & Construction — Part 2

Follow the machine and equipment use procedures.

Implement the system for optimum and required use of the equipment to check pollutants generation.

Necessary test and control measures should be taken by site construction units, supervision units and third-party checks.

Maintain proper documentation, for operating procedures of machine and equipment, used in construction works. Audits and Inspection of the work should be done as per standard requirements.

Administration of contract as per contact document is necessary,

along with other support requirements of contract provisions.

Awareness creation should be given priority. A sincere effort in awareness creation, and its follow up to requirement, makes a big  difference.

On site instructions during pre-construction stage, during construction stage and post construction stage should be displayed for every activity related to pollution control.

Quality control team should provide necessary feedback and issue Notices for Nonconformance. There should be regular testing, monitoring, reporting, and discussions, on control measures.

The most important steps taken are at the higher levels are:

The clearly and coordinate based site map of construction project ,that fulfill the requirements, should be handed over to the construction agency (CA).

The CA must keep the project area fenced with gates, for safety and security. The activities areas inside the occupied areas should be marked and the maps should be revised periodically based on the pace of development inside the area.

All the stakeholders should participate in providing support to mandatory control measure

Construction of check dams on natural drains and streams, help in creating low velocity of water, which provides more settling time to particles and checks flow of sediments.

Check dams provide more time to store water and, the water percolates to recharge the ground water.

Check dams can increase the ground water table in river basins.

City sewage must be treated in sewage treatment plants and only treated effluents be allowed to join the river.

Coliform exists in the bodies of warm-blooded animals and humans. And are passed out as fecal matter in environment. Their availability in water test samples results, indicate that the water was in contact with fecal waste and as such may contain disease causing organisms.

Pollutant Control

Real time data collection and monitoring system are in place in this age of advanced computer and data transmission technology. Weather Station data is also available. All such data can be analyzed foe meaningful information which can be used for pollution control  of effluents.

Major control parameters are

BOD– Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD, also called Biological Oxygen Demand) is the amount of dissolved oxygen needed (i.e. demanded) by aerobic biological organisms to break down organic material present in a given water sample at certain temperature over a specific time. The BOD value is most commonly expressed in milligrams of oxygen consumed per liter of sample during 5 days of incubation at 20 °C and is often used as a surrogate of the degree of organic pollution of water.

COD-In environmental chemistry, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) is an indicative measure of the amount of oxygen that can be consumed by reactions in a measured solution. It is commonly expressed in mass of oxygen consumed over volume of solution which in SI units is milligrams per liter (mg/L). A COD test can be used to easily quantify the number of organics in water. The most common application of COD is in quantifying the amount of oxidizable pollutants found in surface water (e.g. lakes and rivers) or wastewater. COD is useful in terms of water quality by providing a metric to determine the effect an effluent will have on the receiving body, much like biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). —-Source Wikipedia

Coliforms–Coliform bacteria are organisms that are present in the environment and in the feces of all warm-blooded animals and humans. Coliform bacteria will not likely cause illness. However, their presence in drinking water indicates that disease-causing organisms (pathogens) could be in the water system.

pH Value –pH is the measure of acidity or alkalinity of an aqueous solution.  The term pH refers to the potential hydrogen/hydroxyl ion content of a solution.  Solutions ionize into positive and negative ions.  If a solution has more hydrogen (positive) ions than hydroxyl (negative) ions, then it is acidic and has a pH in the range of 0 to 6.9.  Alternatively, if a solution has more hydroxyl (negative) ions than hydrogen (positive) ions then it is alkaline with a pH in the range of 7.1 to 14.  Pure water and deionized water have a balance of hydrogen (H+) and hydroxyl (OH-) ions and is therefore pH neutral (pH 7).

If the pH of a solution is not within the correct range the plant will not have the ability to absorb some of the essential elements required for proper plant growth.  All plants have a pH range, which will produce healthy growth, and this level will vary from plant to plant, but most plants prefer a slightly acidic growing environment (5.8 to 6.2), although most plants can survive in an environment with pH values between 5.0 and 7.0.

Plants grown in acidic environments can experience a variety of symptoms, including aluminum (Al), hydrogen (H), and/or manganese (Mn) toxicity, as well as nutrient deficiencies of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg).

Conversely, in alkaline environments molybdenum (Mo) and macronutrients (except for phosphorus) availability increases, but phosphorus (P), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu) and cobalt (Co) levels are reduced, and may adversely affect plant growth.

From the chart above each element can become more and less available to the plants as pH changes.  If the pH of your solution is out of the desired range, one or more of the essential elements will become unavailable to the plant, causing nutrient deficiencies, which will result in slow growth rates, and poor yields.

Actions Required  

The effluents from the surface treatment plants, construction sites, industries need to be treated with best available technology and tested with digital instruments.

The technological upgradation must be taken on priority.

All actions must be based on quality plans and assurance measures, predetermined to the satisfaction of standard requirement. The Quality Control feedback, and the modifications on the feedback, if required must be done immediately.

Standard laboratories with latest equipment and technology must help in testing the quality of effluents.

The receiving bodies quantity capacity and quality capacities must be ascertained before allowing disposal into them.