Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2007NE147B

Detection of Episodic Low-level Concentrations of Emerging Contaminants in Drinking Water

Institute: Nebraska
Year Established: 2007 Start Date: 2007-03-01 End Date: 2008-02-29
Total Federal Funds: $19,891 Total Non-Federal Funds: $39,801

Principal Investigators: Bruce Dvorak, Daniel Snow

Project Summary: The proposed study is to prove the viability of a device that could sample a continuous flow of water from a specific point in a drinking water system to detect episodic pulses of very low levels of organic contaminants. Most water quality testing methods for organic compounds have detection limits in the microgram/L (e.g., 1 g contamination in 109 g of water) range. Based on analytical methods developed by Dr. Snow in the Water Science Lab, the technical literature, other recent advances in the detection of emerging environmental contaminants, and our calculations, we believe that this device (containing XAD resin) will have detection limits in the picogram/L (1g in 1015) range. The development of this type of device has a high probability of attracting external funding once preliminary experimental work has been performed to prove the basic concept. This type of device will be particularly used in Nebraska, which has many private (and public) water supply wells and public water supplies (that do not add a chlorine residual to water in the distribution system) potentially experience cross contamination from a range of sources. Thus, this methodl0ogy offers an additional diagnostic tool to identify if a water supply is contaminated by organic contaminants (with a focus on those frequently found in municipal sewage).