Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Water
Session: 1
Room: Senate
Diana Garcia - Texas Southern University
Co-Author(s): Hyun-Min Hwang, Texas Southern University, Houston,TX; Raymond Rhodes, Texas Southern University, Houston, TX.
Groundwater quality has been a concern of Texas for many years due to elevated levels of toxic chemicals such as nitrate and trace metals. Many communities primarily rely on groundwater for their drinking water. This study was to estimate health risk of residents in urban and rural communities through ingestion of groundwater as drinking water. Concentrations of these chemicals in groundwater in 10 urban and 10 rural communities were utilized to determine if the hazard quotient is greater than the reference dose of arsenic, nitrate and uranium. Drinking water ingestion rates and body weights in each age group and reference doses reported by US EPA were used to calculate cumulative daily intake of these chemicals. Hazardous quotients of arsenic and uranium were significantly lower than one in all communities, indicating that non-cancer risk of these two chemicals were negligible. However, hazardous quotient of nitrate in 2 communities were higher than one. This indicates residents in these communities may experience health problems when they utilize groundwater for drinking water for long periods of time (e.g., 30 years). Primary source of nitrate is artificial fertilizer applied to crop lands. With the mining industry growing in Texas it is expected that uranium would pose the biggest threat on Texas residents. As of 2021, there has been approximately more than a million of Texas residents without safe drinking water at home. The results of this study indicate that groundwater in many communities need to be purified before consumption.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): NSF HRD-2107146
Faculty Advisor: Hyun-Min Hwang, Ph.D, hyun-min.hwang@tsu.edu
Role: I revised the case studies, quantitative research, and data analysis used as part of this study. I also verified the calculations for the noncancer hazard quotient and noncancer hazard index as well as the calculations regarding exposure to males and females. I also created the figures and tables as part of the study.