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Chemical Quality of Effluents and Their Influence on Water Quality in a Shallow Aquifer¹

ABSTRACT

The chemical quality of liquid effluent released from an industrial waste treatment plant at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory controls the quality of water in a shallow aquifer in the alluvium of Mortandad Canyon. The dilution of the effluent with surface flow in the canyon reduces the concentrations of the chemicals as they move down gradient into the aquifer. Mass estimates of residual chemicals in solution in the aquifer average 1–6% of the total chemicals released to the canyon from 1963–1974. The average annual concentration of sodium, nitrate, chloride, and total dissolved solids in the aquifer through a 12-year period was directly correlated with annual average concentrations in the effluent. This relationship provides a means of predicting the impact of the chemical effluents on the quality of water in the aquifer.

Key Words: dilution ratios • mass inventories • regression

¹ Research funded under contract No. W-7405-ENG. 36 between the U. S. Energy Res. and Develop. Admin, and the Los Alamos Sci. Lab.

² Hydrologist, Chemist, and Radiation Ecologist, respectively, Los Alamos Sci. Lab., Los Alamos, NM 87545.

Received for publication November 7, 1975.