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Groundwater and Drinking Water Initiatives
To protect Cape Cod's coastal marine sanctuary, wastewater is disposed on land, primarily in septic systems that allow pollutants to seep through porous soils, often reaching shallow drinking water wells. Silent Spring Institute's work Tracking Estrogens and Other Hormonally Active Pollutants in Cape Cod Groundwater and Drinking Water focuses on how estrogens and related pollutants travel through the Cape Cod aquifer.
A companion project, Indicators of Septic System Impacts on Private Wells, is assessing the extent of water contamination by hormonally active pollutants, developing economical methods to identify areas with an elevated risk of contamination, and using new geographic information system (GIS) technology to estimate levels of contamination.
Tracking Estrogens and Other Hormonally Active Pollutants in Cape Cod Groundwater and Drinking Water
Drinking water for Cape Cod residents comes from a sole source aquifer.
Because the Cape has a shallow water table and sandy, porous soil, the
aquifer is particularly vulnerable to land use activity. Silent Spring
Institute's study "Tracking estrogens and other hormonally active
pollutants in Cape Cod groundwater and drinking water" focuses on
measuring degradation to groundwater quality from wastewater leaching from
septic systems and into the aquifer. This research is critical because
more than 80% of Cape residences use septic systems.
This research has provided some of the first data to quantify the levels
of hormonally active compounds introduced into groundwater from septic systems
and how these
compounds behave as they travel through groundwater systems.
Recent publications:
Publication abstract:
Results
of the Groundwater Septic Study published in Environmental Science & Technology:
Steroid
Estrogens, Nonylphenol Ethoxylate Metabolites, and Other Wastewater Contaminants
in Groundwater Affected by a Residential
Septic System on Cape Cod, MA
Conference abstract (pdf):
Contamination
of surface ponds on Cape Cod, MA, by EDCs and pharmaceuticals from septic-contaminated
groundwater. North American
Meeting of the Society
for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, November 2006, Montreal, Canada.
Turner Designs Donates Fluorometer
A recent donation of a handheld fluorometer by Turner Designs, Inc., has
provided us with an excellent tool that will allow us to rapidly and inexpensively
test ground and surface water samples for the presence of fluorescent whitening
agents (FWAs). These compounds are present in detergents and other household
products and can act as proxies for other wastewater contaminants, such
as endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceuticals. Use of this
instrument to screen for the presence of wastewater-associated FWAs will
greatly streamline sample screening and allow us to more accurately select
water samples to submit to a laboratory for the more costly analysis of
EDCs and pharmaceuticals.
For more on Turner Designs' Instrument Donation Program see this link:
http://www.turnerdesigns.com/donations