PREDICTING TOXIC WASTE CONCENTRATIONS IN COMMUNITY DRINKING WATER SUPPLIES FROM UPSTREAM INDUSTRIAL DISCHARGES: A VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS (OHIO, WEST VIRGINIA)

In February, 1978 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed amendments to the National Interim Primary Drinking Water Regulations to deal with the control of chloroform and synthetic organics in drinking water. Under the proposed rules, those utilities that could prove they were not "vulnerable" to the above parameters would be granted a variance. In November, 1979 the regulation regarding synthetic organics was dropped because of the difficulty in defining, let alone assessing a community's vulnerability.; This study used QUAL-II, a water quality simulation model, and HEC-II a water surface profile model, to systematically study many different variables influencing surface water quality in a spatial context. Inputs from organic chemistry, epidemiology and fluid dynamics are brought together and linked areally to produce a rational methodology capable of closing the "loop" between water pollution control strategies and public health. First order decay coefficients were derived and utilized to extend QUAL-II to simulate the priority pollutants rather than being limited to the traditional water quality parameters usually modeled by QUAL-II in the past.; QUAL-II was used to simulate toxic waste concentrations in drinking water supplies along the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers between Charleston, West Virginia and Cincinnati, Ohio. The simulated toxic waste concentrations for each community were compared to health guidelines to assess which communities were more "vulnerable" to upstream discharges of industrial waste. The following results are only illustrative of the insight the methodology can provide and should not be considered definitive.; Seven of the ten communities analyzed in the case study area were found to have simulated concentrations exceeding water quality guidelines for taste and odor. All of the utilities were vulnerable to various toxic and/or carcinogenic pollutants. All the communities were vulnerable to spills in addition to the typical daily discharges of pollutants.; Contrary to conventional widsom, one cannot assume that the most downstream utility faces the greatest risk and therefore is the most vulnerable. Vulnerability depends on relative locations of intakes and outfalls and flow and persistence of the pollutants. Thus, it seems that the issue of community vulnerability is not a clear-cut issue of looking for the most downstream utility or modeling a few pollutants at average flow.