| Title |
An Analysis of Micro Organic Pollutants in Drinking Water and their Health Risks |
| Authors |
정용 ; 신동천 ; 장재연 ; 이보영 ; 조성준 ( Yong Chung ; Dong Chun Shin ; Jae Yeon Jang ; Bo Young Lee ; Seong Joon Jo ) |
| Abstract |
Besides of the legal water quality indices such as pH, NH₃-N, NO₂-N, Coliform groups and etc., the unregulated pollutants which is so called at $quot;microorganic chemicals$quot; or $quot;microorganic pollutants$quot; have been issued as being much increased to use and polluted in drinking water recently. They have been identified as one cause of modern diseases in toxicologically as well as epidemiologically This study was performed to identify the concentration as well as the kind of microorganic pollutants in drinking water and to provide the basic data for health risk assessment. The water samples were collected at three water supply stations for the quality of raw and treated water and six points of tap water in Seoul municipal areas during July and November in 1987. 10 kinds of the volatile organic pollutants such as vinyl chloride, carbon tetrachloride, trihalomethanes (THMs) and etc. were determined by purge trap method using gas chromatography. 19 kinds of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as benzo (a) pyrene, phenathren and etc. were processed by XAD-2 resin adsorption, liquid-liquid extraction and TLC separation, and determined by gas chromatography. The results of analysis were as follows; 1. THMs in treated and tap water were major pollutants among volatile organic pollutants detected. The highest concentration of chloroform was 13.45 ㎍/ℓ in tap water. 2. Carbon tetrachloride, vinyl chloride, 1,1-dichloroethane, 1,2-dichloroethane, trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, benzene were not detected. 3. The total mean concentrations of PAHs were 188.93 ng/ℓ, 177.6 ng/ℓ, 148.12 ng/ℓ in the raw, treated and tap water, respectively. 4. The mean concentrations of phenathren were 77.49 ng/ℓ of the raw water, 55.08 ng/ℓ of the treated water and 46.32 ng/ℓ of the tap water, respectively. Phenanthren was polluted in the highest level of PAHs in the water samples. 5. Benzo (a) pyrene detected in tap water was the mean concentration 5.7 ng/ℓ which, less than WHO drinking water quality standards, 10 ng/ℓ. 6. The halogenated pesticide was as low as below the range of dection in the gas chromatography. With the above results, as microorganic chemicals being polluted, drinking water quality should be evaluated on the hazard and the risk. According to the risk assessment of benzo (a) pyrene and chloroform, the Seoulian drinking the water analyzed would be exposured to the risk occurrence about 200 additional case of cancer in a population of 10 million in a life time. Futher more researches of micro organic pollutants should be needed in the individual and population risk as well as be regulated legally. |