Water Pollution Testing

Clean, potable water is perhaps the most basic human resource, and ensuring that water remains potable is an important part of society. In a modern world of industry and manufacturing, changes to local health or environmental degradation can often be linked to pollution. Testing for pollution can be expensive, but the cost is worth it for maintaining healthy waterways.

Possible Contaminants

• Water is an excellent solvent, which means that things dissolve easily in it. For this reason, any number of things can end up in streams, lakes and oceans. Common modern contaminants include chlorinated organics, such as pesticides, and volatile organic molecules, including gasoline or fuel sources. Among the most dangerous pollutants are heavy metals, such as mercury, lead, zinc and nickel, which are by-products of mining and manufacturing. Even normally basic nutrients, including phosphorous and sodium, can become pollutants in high quantities.

Testing for Specific Contaminants

• So many different chemicals that could end up in water, and water quality tests can be expensive. In most cases, a specific chemical requires a specific reagent to show its presents in water. Using expensive devices, such as spectrometers that separate mixtures into individual substances, are also very expensive and usually not available to low-profile cases of contamination. Because of the expense, preliminary investigation is an important step in the testing process. If the range of possible contaminants can be narrowed to just a few, the cost of testing will be greatly reduced.

Sources of Contamination

• Because of water's solvency many potential contaminants have become ubiquitous, even in drinking water. Fortunately they are normally dissolved in such minuscule quantities that they have no effect on human or environmental health. However, real health hazards develop after continual ejections of waste into a watershed. Large mining operations and manufacturing plants use vast quantities of water for industrial processes, and are common sources of pollution or lack of environmental controls. Although mining and manufacturing typically produce inorganic pollution, large-scale agricultural operations are common producers of organic pollutants, such as pesticides and animal waste.

Who is Responsible for Testing?

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or state departments of environmental quality are usually responsible for testing of high profile water pollution issues. In addition to government entities, many private laboratories and environmental health firms can be contracted to perform water quality testing for smaller samples or non-mandated causes for inspection. If the test was mandated by the EPA or other environmental agencies, then costs are usually charged to the identified polluter.

Local Water Quality

• Results of routine tests should be available for public inspection. If you have questions about the health of your local watershed, contact the nearest state office of environmental quality, or the municipal water department in your city.