Pollution Prevention and Control: Part I

This book introduces the general strategy of design, the natural environmental cycles and how human activities interrupt and control them, toxicity and risk assessment for the protection of human and environmental health, the fate of pollutants in the environment, and a review of U.S. and international laws and regulations. Understanding these broad environmental issues leads to better engineering.

Put in more simple terms, it is about a very simple idea from Tom Chapin’s children’s song, ‘Someone’s Gonna Use It After You’, but the issue is not childish or trivial.

When you stand at the sink, did you ever think

About the water flowing down the drain?

...

Someone’s gonna use it after you.…

This lyric wonderfully captures the essence of the environmental ethic. Our actions can protect or destroy.

We are reminded of it daily. In the past few days the New York Times has reported that the daily average atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeded 400 ppm for the first time, and the High Plains aquifer is so depleted by water mining that farmers in Kansas face water shortages. More tragic is the report that diarrhea kills an estimated 900, 000 children each year, mostly because of just four microorganisms that can easily be inactivated in drinking water.

These problems are not really ‘news’. The warning signs have been evident for years. We know how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We know when aquifers are being over used. We know how to save lives by improving public health through clean water and better diet.

This book will be followed by four books about the design of pollution control processes and integrated systems that are widely used in water pollution control, air pollution control, and solid waste control.

Book 2 is about accounting for the flow of energy and material, both polluting and innocuous, through manufacturing and waste treatment systems.

Book 3 is about using chemical and biological reactions to destroy and transform pollutants to facilitate the separation of different materials, or to make substances safe for discharge to water, air or soil.

Book 4 is about the many ways to separate solids from liquids, solids from gases, solids from solids, and so on in all combinations. The solution of a problem is never stymied by lack of separation technology, but it may be weakened by failure to organize them into efficient processing systems, or to overlook an innovative combinations of transformation and separation.

Book 5 is about minimizing costs and comparing alternate designs. Engineering projects almost always have more than one feasible solution, and often there are several that are attractive. The options must be measured and compared by using an objective criteria like construction cost, lifetime cost, mass of pollutant discharged. Also discussed are methods for evaluating non-monetary aspects of projects.

The goal of the series is to build problem-solving strategies and skills that are widely useful in water pollution control, air pollution control, and solid waste control. We want to stimulate innovation in pollution control systems design and pollution prevention.

Pollution control engineers support the people who decide how public and private funds will be used to solve problems. They bring logic and order and solid quantitative information to the discussion so better decisions will be made. They design the machinery and structures and systems that are needed to make things better. And, they make sure the price will be right.

The ultimate goal of environmental engineering, and the part of it that we call pollution control engineering, is to increase the level of health and happiness in the world. We hope this series of books will help to do that.

Finally, we wish to thank Dale Rudd for many good ideas over many years, Erhard Joeres for his review of the book and A. ‘Sam’ James for help on water quality modeling.

Paul Mac Berthouex

Emeritus Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The University of Wisconsin-Madison

Linfield C. Brown

Emeritus Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Tufts University

July 2013

• Preface

1. The Strategy of Pollution Control Engineering
   1. Our Round River
   2. A Preview of This Book
   3. The Fallacy of Zero Emissions
   4. The Integration of Pollution Control
   5. An Integrated Approach to Design
   6. The Integrated Approach to Learning Pollution Control Engineering
2. The Engineering Design Process
   1. Defining the Design Problem
   2. Identifying the Alternatives
   3. Voluntary Pollution Prevention by Industry
   4. Designing for Pollution Prevention
   5. Green Chemistry
   6. Savings from Pollution Prevention
   7. Selecting the Best Design
   8. Conclusion
3. The Environmental System
   1. Environmental Cycles and Environmental Stability
   2. The Water Cycle
   3. The Natural Carbon Cycle
   4. The Industrial Carbon Cycle
   5. Essential Nutrients
   6. The Nitrogen Cycle
   7. The Phosphorus Cycle
   8. The Sulfur Cycle
   9. Conclusion
4. Toxicity and Aquatic Water Quality Criteria
   1. Toxicity
   2. Toxic Chemicals and Effects
   3. Aquatic Bioassays
   4. Water Quality Criteria for Toxic Chemicals
   5. Site-Specific Water Quality Criteria
   6. Adjusting for Water Hardness
   7. Ammonia Toxicity
   8. Conclusion
5. Risk Assessment
   1. Risk Assessment Models and Philosophy
   2. Semi-Quantitative Risk Assessment
   3. Hazards and Risks
   4. Toxic Chemicals – The Regulator’s Dilemma
   5. Tests for Genotoxicity
   6. The Reference Dose (RfD) for Non-Carcinogenic Chemicals
   7. The Dose Response Curve and the Slope Factor (SF)
   8. The Added Risk Concept
   9. Risk-based Standards for Drinking Water
   10. Risk Assessment of the Land Application of Sludge
   11. Conclusion
6. Waterborne Microbial Diseases
   1. Promoting Public Health and Happiness
   2. An Important Public Health Event
   3. Risk Assessment for Pathogenic Organisms
   4. The DALY Metric for Evaluating Public Health Risk
   5. Drinking Water Treatment and Disinfection
   6. Animal Waste Management
   7. Natural Die-Off of Microorganisms
   8. Management of Sludge Applications to Land
   9. Monitoring the Microbial Quality of Drinking Water
   10. Conclusion
7. The Fate of Pollutants in Air
   1. Introduction
   2. Natural and Engineered Systems
   3. Global Dispersion of Pollutants
   4. A Worst-Case Model for Pollutant Dispersion
   5. The Gaussan Model for Air Pollutant Dispersion
   6. Advanced Air Quality Models
   7. Case Study: Detroit Multi-Pollutant Pilot Project
   8. Conclusion
8. The Fate of Pollutants in Water
   1. Introduction
   2. Fate of Pollutants in Rivers
   3. Segmented River Models
   4. Partitioning of Pollutants between Water, Air and Solids
   5. Case Study: PCBs in the Fox River, Wisconsin
   6. Fate of Pollutants in Lakes
   7. Advanced Lake Models
   8. Fate of Pollutants in Estuaries
   9. Case Study – The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model
   10. Fate of Pollutants in the Sea
   11. Conclusion
9. The Fate of Pollutants in Soil and Groundwater
   1. Groundwater Contamination
   2. The Movement of Groundwater
   3. Redirecting Groundwater Flow by Pumping
   4. Case Study: Tucson International Airport Area (TIAA) Superfund Site
   5. Conclusion
10. Guidelines for Environmental Protection
    1. Introduction
    2. International Environmental Agreements
    3. World Health Organization Guidelines
    4. European Union (EU Directives)
    5. India and China
    6. The United States
    7. ISO 14000 Standards for Environmental Quality Management
    8. Conclusion
11. References & Recommended Reading
12. Appendix 1 – Drinking Water Criteria (Safe Drinking Water Act)
13. Appendix 2 – Clean Water Act – Human Health Water Quality Criteria
14. Appendix 3 – USEPA Aquatic Life Criteria for Freshwater and Saltwater
15. Appendix 4 – Creation of U.S. Federal Law
16. Appendix 5 – Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
17. Appendix 6 – Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)

• Index