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Land Application of Waste — An Accident Waiting to Happen a
Author(s) -
Johnson Charles C.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
groundwater
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1745-6584
pISSN - 0017-467X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6584.1979.tb03277.x
Subject(s) - environmental science , streams , contamination , groundwater , waste management , surface water , contaminated land , water quality , population , biodegradable waste , environmental engineering , engineering , environmental remediation , environmental health , medicine , computer network , ecology , geotechnical engineering , computer science , biology
Half the population depends on ground water for domestic uses. Use is increasing 25 percent per decade. Ground water is generally used with little or no treatment. Some persons would transfer the discharge of our waste products from contaminated surface streams to the land and thus relatively clean ground waters. No standards exist that protect ground‐water quality. Research necessary to give assurance that natural interaction of waste water and soils will remove, to acceptable levels, potentially harmful contaminants, organic and inorganic, that permeate today's waste streams and today's health concerns, has not been done. Success reports on land treatment of waste water have a not evaluated deterioration of ground water from organic contamination. Most waste waters contain synthetic organics in varying concentrations. EPA recommends their reduction in drinking water to the lowest possible level. Most instances of ground‐water contamination have been discovered after drinking water is contaminated. Unless the public is willing to treat ground water as it does water from surface streams, greater control of land disposal practices must be exercised. Current practice does not indicate the necessary controls are contemplated or recognized. It follows that the widespread use of the land treatment alternative is, in reality, an accident waiting to happen.