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Tainted Earth
Smelting is an industrial process involving the extraction of metal from ore. During this process, impurities in ore-including arsenic, lead, and cadmium-may be released from smoke stacks, contaminating air, water, and soil with toxic-heavy metals.
The problem of public health harm from smelter emissions received little official attention for much for the twentieth century. Though people living near smelters periodically complained that their health was impaired by both sulfur dioxide and heavy metals, for much of the century there was strong deference to industry claims that smelter operations were a nuisance and not a serious threat to health. It was only when the majority of children living near the El Paso, Texas, smelter were discovered to be lead-exposed in the early 1970s that systematic, independent investigation of exposure to heavy metals in smelting communities began. Following El Paso, an even more serious led poisoning epidemic was discovered around the Bunker Hill smelter in northern Idaho. In Tacoma, Washington, a copper smelter exposed children to arsenic-a carcinogenic threat.
Thoroughly grounded in extensive archival research,Tainted Earthtraces the rise of public health concerns about nonferrous smelting in the western United States, focusing on three major facilities: Tacoma, Washington; El Paso, Texas; and Bunker Hill, Idaho. Marianne Sullivan documents the response from community residents, public health scientists, the industry, and the government to pollution from smelters as well as the long road to protecting public health and the environment. Placing the environmental and public health aspects of smelting in historical context, the book connects local incidents to national stories on the regulation of airborne toxic metals.
The nonferrous smelting industry has left a toxic legacy in the United States and around the world. Unless these toxic metals are cleaned up, they will persist in the environment and may sicken people-children in particular-for generations to come. The twentieth-century struggle to control smelter pollution shares many similarities with public health battles with such industries as tobacco and asbestos where industry supported science created doubt about harm, and reluctant government regulators did not take decisive action to protect the public's health.
eBook
Water in Texas
No natural resource issue has greater significance for the future of Texas than water. The state's demand for water for municipal, industrial, agricultural, and recreational uses continues to grow exponentially, while the supply from rivers, lakes, aquifers, and reservoirs is limited. To help Texans manage their water resources today and plan for future needs, one of Texas's top water experts has compiled this authoritative overview of water issues in Texas. Water in Texas covers all the major themes in water management and conservation: Living with a Limited ResourceThe Molecule that Moves MountainsA Texas Water JourneyThe Gulf Shores of TexasWho's Who in WaterTexas Water Law: A Blend of Two CulturesDoes Texas Have Enough Water?Planning for the FutureWhat's in Your Water?How Much is Water Worth?Water is Our Legacy Illustrated with color photographs and maps, Water in Texas will be the essential resource for landowners, citizen activists, policymakers, and city planners.
eBook
Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment
Houston is struggling with many of the environmental problems that most of the nation's major metropolitan areas are struggling with - transportation, water and air pollution, flooding, and major demographic changes. Therefore, Houston provided an excellent site for a regional meeting on the relationship between environment and health. The purpose of this workshop in Houston was to bring all the stakeholders together - the private and public sector, along with representatives of the diverse communities in Houston - to discuss the impact of the natural, built, and social environments on human health. Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment summarizes the presentations and discussions of this workshop. The lessons one may draw from this meeting's presentations and discussions apply to other regions that are undergoing similar changes and that must also contend, as does Houston, with the legacies of insufficient planning, environmentally deficient planning, or sometimes, no planning at all.
eBook
Karst Groundwater Vulnerability Determined by Modeled Age and Residence Time Tracers
Karst aquifers are a vital groundwater resource globally, but features such as rapid recharge and conduit flow make them highly vulnerable to land‐surface contamination. We apply environmental age tracers to the south‐central Texas Edwards aquifer, a karst resource in a rapidly urbanizing and drought‐prone region, to assess vulnerability to land‐surface contamination and risks unique to karst aquifers. We show that vulnerability of Edwards aquifer groundwater follows similar spatial and depth patterns common to porous‐media type aquifers, despite complicated karst hydrogeologic features. Shallow and unconfined parts are more vulnerable to land‐surface contamination than the deeper and confined parts, although even the oldest groundwater is mixed with some recent recharge. When modeled age‐tracer results are coupled with other independent geochemical tracers of water‐rock interaction specific to karst settings, they can yield insight into residence time and associated vulnerability. Plain Language Summary Understanding groundwater contamination risks is crucial for resource management. Karst aquifers—formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone—supply as much as a quarter of the world's drinking water. Karst aquifers are highly complex and vulnerable to contamination by human activities. Groundwater age provides direct insight into the vulnerability of groundwater to contamination. Here we use groundwater ages (ranging from 4 to 16,900 years) and other geochemical tracers for the Edwards aquifer, a critical karst resource in Texas in a rapidly urbanizing and climatically sensitive area, to assess vulnerability to contamination, with implications for karst aquifers globally. This approach provides new insights not independently possible from hydrogeologic characteristics or age tracers. Key Points Groundwater age tracers provide unique insight into the vulnerability of karst groundwater to land‐surface contamination The complicated hydrologic structure of karst nonetheless follows similar patterns as other aquifers Independent geochemical tracers of residence time provide proxies for vulnerability determined from age tracers
Journal Article
Chemical Analysis of Wastewater from Unconventional Drilling Operations
Trillions of liters of wastewater from oil and gas extraction are generated annually in the US. The contribution from unconventional drilling operations (UDO), such as hydraulic fracturing, to this volume will likely continue to increase in the foreseeable future. The chemical content of wastewater from UDO varies with region, operator, and elapsed time after production begins. Detailed chemical analyses may be used to determine its content, select appropriate treatment options, and identify its source in cases of environmental contamination. In this study, one wastewater sample each from direct effluent, a disposal well, and a waste pit, all in West Texas, were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy, high performance liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry, high performance ion chromatography, total organic carbon/total nitrogen analysis, and pH and conductivity analysis. Several compounds known to compose hydraulic fracturing fluid were detected among two of the wastewater samples including 2-butoxyethanol, alkyl amines, and cocamide diethanolamines, toluene, and o-xylene. Due both to its quantity and quality, proper management of wastewater from UDO will be essential.
Journal Article
Comparing residential contamination in a Houston environmental justice neighborhood before and after Hurricane Harvey
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are complex environmental toxicants. Exposure to them has been linked to adverse health outcomes including cancer, as well as diseases of the skin, liver, and immune system. Based on an ongoing community engagement partnership with stakeholder groups and residents, we conducted a small longitudinal study to assess domestic exposure to PAHs among residents of Manchester, an environmental justice neighborhood located in the East End of Houston, TX.
In December, 2016, we used fiber wipes to collect samples of household dust from 25 homes in Manchester. Following Hurricane Harvey, in September 2017, we revisited 24 of the 25 homes to collect soil samples from the front yards of the same homes. Wipes and soil were analyzed for the presence of PAHs using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) methods. Principal component analysis plots, heatmaps, and PAH ratios were used to compare pre- and post-Hurricane Harvey samples.
While direct comparison is not possible, we present three methods for comparing PAHs found in pre-hurricane fiber wipes and post-hurricane soil samples. The methods demonstrate that the PAHs found before and after Hurricane Harvey are likely from similar sources and that those sources are most likely to be associated with combustion. We also found evidence of redistribution of PAHs due to extreme flooding associated with Hurricane Harvey.
Residents of the Manchester neighborhood of Houston, TX, are exposed to a range of PAHs in household dust and outdoor soil. While it was not possible to compare directly, we were able to use several methods to assess detected concentrations, changes in site-specific PAH allocations, and PAH origination. Additional research is needed to identify specific sources of domestic PAH exposure in these communities and continued work involving community members and policy makers should aim to develop interventions to reduce domestic exposure to and prevent negative health outcomes from PAHs.
Journal Article
Review: groundwater management practices, challenges, and innovations in the High Plains aquifer, USA—lessons and recommended actions
The US High Plains aquifer, one of the largest freshwater aquifer systems in the world, continues to decline, threatening the long-term viability of the region’s irrigation-based economy. The eight High Plains States take different approaches to the development and management of the aquifer based on each state’s body of water laws that abide by different legal doctrines, on which Federal laws are superposed, thus creating difficulties in integrated regional water-management efforts. Although accumulating hydrologic stresses and competing demands on groundwater resources are making groundwater management increasingly complex, they are also leading to innovative management approaches, which are highlighted in this paper as good examples for emulation in managing groundwater resources. It is concluded that the fragmented and piecemeal institutional arrangements for managing the supplies and quality of water are inadequate to meet the water challenges of the future. A number of recommendations for enhancing the sustainability of the aquifer are presented, including the formation of an interstate groundwater commission for the High Plains aquifer along the lines of the Delaware and Susquehanna River Basins Commissions in the US. Finally, some lessons on groundwater management that other countries can learn from the US experience are outlined.
Journal Article
A multi-period optimization model for conjunctive surface water–ground water use via aquifer storage and recovery in Corpus Christi, Texas
The present study develops and evaluates a decision support system for the conjunctive management of the current surface and proposed aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) facility of the city of Corpus Christi, TX using a simulation–optimization approach. The objective of the model is to maximize water storage in the surface and subsurface storage units while meeting (1) the freshwater inflow requirements to the Corpus Christi estuary and (2) the water demands of the city and its service area. The model is parameterized using streamflow data from the U. S. Geological Survey gauging stations on the Nueces River and its tributaries as well as long-term climatic data and regional hydrogeologic information. Results indicate that a single-well field ASR facility is capable of storing approximately 925 ha-m (7,500 ac-ft) of water over a 5-year period in the Evangeline Aquifer with a total potential storage of about 2,715 ha-m (22,000 ac-ft) of water over the jurisdictional area of the Corpus Christi Aquifer Storage and Recovery Conservation District. Surplus surface water sources are seen to contribute approximately 49–96 % of the water stored in the ASR during the simulation period. The remaining storage came from either Choke Canyon Reservoir or Lake Corpus Christi, which also resulted in a slight reduction in evapotranspiration in both reservoirs. The analysis indicates that the proposed ASR system is not limited on the supply side but multiple well fields may be required to increase the storage capacity within the aquifer.
Journal Article
Markedly enhanced absorption and direct radiative forcing of black carbon under polluted urban environments
Black carbon (BC) exerts profound impacts on air quality and climate because of its high absorption cross-section over a broad range of electromagnetic spectra, but the current results on absorption enhancement of BC particles during atmospheric aging remain conflicting. Here, we quantified the aging and variation in the optical properties of BC particles under ambient conditions in Beijing, China, and Houston, United States, using a novel environmental chamber approach. BC aging exhibits two distinct stages, i.e., initial transformation from a fractal to spherical morphology with little absorption variation and subsequent growth of fully compact particles with a large absorption enhancement. The timescales to achieve complete morphology modification and an absorption amplification factor of 2.4 for BC particles are estimated to be 2.3 h and 4.6 h, respectively, in Beijing, compared with 9 h and 18 h, respectively, in Houston. Our findings indicate that BC under polluted urban environments could play an essential role in pollution development and contribute importantly to large positive radiative forcing. The variation in direct radiative forcing is dependent on the rate and timescale of BC aging, with a clear distinction between urban cities in developed and developing countries, i.e., a higher climatic impact inmore polluted environments. We suggest that mediation in BC emissions achieves a cobenefit in simultaneously controlling air pollution and protecting climate, especially for developing countries.
Journal Article