Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Volume 53, Issue 6, Pages 3095-3103Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b04475
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- USGS National Water Quality Program's National Water Quality Assessment Project
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In the U.S., about 44 million people rely on self supplied groundwater for drinking water. Because most self supplied homeowners do not treat their water to control corrosion, drinking water can be susceptible to lead (Pb) contamination from metal plumbing. To assess the types and locations of susceptible groundwater, a geochemical reaction model that included pure Pb minerals and solid solutions of calcite (CaxPb1-xCO3) and apatite [CaxPb5-x(PO4)(3)(OH; Cl; F)] was developed to estimate the lead solubility potential (LSP) for over 8300 untreated groundwater samples collected from domestic and public-supply sites between 2000 and 2016 in the U.S. The LSP is the calculated amount of Pb metal that could dissolve at 25 degrees C before a Pb-bearing mineral precipitates. About 33% of untreated groundwater samples had LSP greater than 15 mu g/L-the USEPA forms of Pb. Five percent of samples had high LSP (above 300 mu g/L) and tended to occur in the eastern and southeastern U.S. Measured Pb concentrations above 15 mu g/L were rarely detected (<1%) but always coincided with high LSP values. Future work will provide a better understanding of the relation between water chemistry, Pb-mineral formation, and dissolved Pb concentrations in tap water.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available