The Citizens Committee on Environmental Issues has proposed to the state environmental protection agency the adoption of an effluent standard for all the wastewater treatment plants in the state to include a maximum allowable inorganic nitrogen limit of 10 mg/l, which is based on the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water of 10 mg/l of nitrate nitrogen. The committee’s main arguments are that treatment plants are not properly designed to remove nitrogen and that nitrate nitrogen in surface waters is an environmental risk and health hazard. The state agency has data showing that no surface waters used as drinking water sources exceed 10 mg/l of nitrate nitrogen, and analyses of ground-waters near flowing waters downstream from wastewater discharges show little or no nitrate contamination. Nevertheless, these data have not deterred the committee from insisting 011 reducing the concentration of contaminants listed in the Safe Drinking Water Act to less than their MCLs in wastewater discharges. You have been asked to present a general assessment of nitrogen removal by conventional wastewater treatment and the feasibility of available technology to retrofit existing plants and design new plants to meet an effluent limitation of 10 mg/l of inorganic nitrogen. (Assume other speakers will address the topics of economic feasibility and other sources of nitrogen contamination, such as agricultural land drainage to surface waters and percolation of nitrate fertilizers to ground-waters under cropland.)
We need at least 10 more requests to produce the solution.
0 / 10 have requested this problem solution
The more requests, the faster the answer.