Environmental Pollution and Control

378 Pages·1990·6.908 MB·English

by  P Aarne Vesilind, J. Jeffrey Peirce and Ruth F. Weiner (Auth.)

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for a half a year,
Do you suppose/' the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it/' said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
—Lewis Carroll
Environmental Pollution
and Control
Third Edition
by
P. Aarne Vesilind and J. Jeffrey Peirce
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
and
Ruth F. Weiner
Huntley College of Environmental Studies
Western Washington University
Bellingham, Washington
Butterworth-Heinemann
Boston · London
Sydney · Toronto · Wellington
Copyright © 1990 by Butterworth-Heinemann, a division of Reed Publishing (USA) Inc. AU
rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
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Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, it is the policy of Butterworth-
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best efforts to that end.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vesilind, P. Aarne.
Environmental pollution and control / by P. Aarne Vesilind and
J Jeffrey Peirce and Ruth F. Weiner.—3rd.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-409-90272-1
1. Environmental engineering. I. Peirce, J. Jeffrey.
II. Weiner, Ruth F. ΙΠ. Title.
TD145.V43 1990
628.5-dc20 90-1657
CIP
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Vesilind, P. Aarne
Environmental pollution control.--3rd ed.
1. Environment. Pollution. Control measures
I. Title Π. Peirce, J. Jeffrey ΙΠ. Weiner, Ruth F.
628.5
ISBN 0-409-90272-1
Butterworth-Heinemann
80 Montvale Avenue
Stoneham, MA 02180
10 987654321
Printed in the United States of America
to
Pam, Steve, and Laurie B.
and
Shayn and Leyf
and
Lisa, Annie, Sarah, and Rachel
Preface
The objective of this book is to package the more important aspects of
environmental engineering science and technology in an organized man-
ner and present this mainly technical material to a nonengineering audi-
ence. This book originally began as a set of class notes for a course offered
at Duke University by the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering. The course is designed for nonengineering students and has
been a popular elective. The third edition owes some of its development
to an undergraduate course offered since 1976 in the Huxley College of
Environmental Studies at Western Washington University. Although the
courses have no prerequisites, we assume that the student has a knowledge
of high school or college freshman chemistry for nonmajors. A knowledge
of college algebra is required, but calculus is not used.
We do not intend for this book to be scientifically and technically com-
plete. In fact, many complex environmental problems have been simpli-
fied to the threshold of pain for many engineers and scientists.
Our objective, however, is not to impress nontechnical students with the
rigors and complexities of pollution control technology but rather to make
some of the language and ideas of environmental engineering more
understandable.
P. Aarne Vesilind
J. Jeffrey Peirce
Ruth F. Weiner
Chapter 1
Environmental Pollution
The pictures of the earth from the manned space missions clearly illus-
trated that not only is the earth round but that it is indeed a finite and
lonely little blob. Somehow the sight of this forlorn spaceship, floating
friendless in the blackness of space, brought home the fact that the earth
and its natural resources are indeed all we have and that we must start
worrying about the future of this earth.
The present generation is the first to include among its list of concerns
the very survival of the planet, a question that would have been meaning-
less not too long ago. Before Copernicus not only was the world flat it also
was the center of the entire universe. These past few centuries have wit-
nessed the dramatic change from a human population that thought of itself
powerless to change the earth and anything on its face to a generation that
can literally blow the earth up if it so chooses.
"Blowing up" can take many forms—from the obvious nuclear holo-
caust to the less dramatic but equally effective method of increasing the
ambient temperature through the greenhouse effect and destroying the
delicate balance of life. Put simply, the slow, insidious process of destroy-
ing our own home by contaminating and killing the earth's ability to
support life is what we call environmental pollution.
ROOTS OF OUR CONCERN WITH
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
There are two basic reasons for our concern with environmental pollu-
tion: (1) human health and welfare and (2) our care about the remainder
of nature. The latter concern is not only for the benefits we might derive
from nature but because all of nature has its own right to exist. In this
1
2 ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AND CONTROL
chapter we devote most of the discussion to the first concern, human
health and well-being, and turn to the latter reason for environmental con-
cern, care about the remainder of nature, in the very last chapter of this
book.
Human health and well-being can be impacted by environmental pollu-
tion in two distinctly different ways: (1) on a personal level of detrimental
health effects due to contaminated water, air, or food or (2) on a global
level as the slow yet progressive deterioration of our habitat, resulting in
the eventual destruction of the human species and perhaps all life. Such
a concern is not very personal, since the possibility of that occurring in
our lifetime is about as probable as the sky falling. (Yet we still have many
"Chicken Littles" running around trying to set dates when the world will
come to an end.)1 Our personal concern with environmental pollution
revolves around immediate health problems, and there are plenty of them
to worry about from chlorinated pesticides through heavy metals and
asbestos to contaminated indoor air.
The idea that contamination of the environment is detrimental is not
new. Although most ancient civilizations had strict prohibitions against
various forms of pollution, it wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century that
the idea of taking care of our own environment became a concern to peo-
ple. Contaminated water and air were recognized as being associated with
some diseases, and efforts were made to clean up the cities. For example,
a resolution in 1869 by the Massachusetts Board of Health proclaimed:
We believe all citizens have an inherent right to the enjoyment of
pure and uncontaminated air and water and soil; that this right should
be regarded as belonging to the whole community; and that no one
should be allowed to trespass upon it by his carelessness or his
avarice or even his ignorance.
This was a worthy resolution and would serve well as a code of conduct
for civilization today. The fact that environmental pollution can make peo-
ple sick and even prematurely kill people through various forms of envi-
ronmentally mitigated diseases is a major driving force for environmental
pollution control.
On a different level, we deplore the destruction of our "sacred places"
in nature because of the detrimental effect this has on our mental health.
Many of us enjoy the outdoors, and the wilder and more alone the encoun-
ter, the more we like it. We would be very much the poorer if nature were
not out there for us to be a part of and to enjoy. But this defense of nature
^ee, for example, Paul Erlich's "Eco-catastrophe" (San Francisco: City Lights Books,
1969), which begins with the prediction: "The end of the oceans came late in the summer
of 1979. . . ."
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION 3
is anthropocentric, i.e. for the good of the people, not for the good of the
rest of nature. This is not to say that such a desire is inappropriate, selfish,
or wrong. It is a legitimate desire just as freedom from infectious diseases
is a human desire. It must be recognized, however, for what it is, a benefit
to humans.
The concern with human health is a tricky problem since it involves the
concept of the analysis of risk. Everything we do in life involves a risk
(even staying in bed—you might get hit by lightning or the building might
burn down around you), and we manage risk by reducing it whenever
possible and desirable. Before we discuss the concern of risks due to the
contamination of our environment, it is necessary to understand the prin-
ciples of risk assessment.
RISK ANALYSIS
A substance is considered a pollutant because it is perceived to have an
adverse effect on the environment and, either directly or indirectly, an
adverse effect on human health. It is sometimes difficult to determine,
however, if there is an effect or if the effects have been deleterious or
detrimental.
For example, we are now quite certain that cigarette smoke is unhealthy.
We have specifically identified inhaled cigarette smoke as contributing
significantly to lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and
heart disease. Notice that we do not say that cigarette smoking causes
these health problems because we have not identified the causes—the
etiology—of any of them at least in the sense that we have identified the
poliomyelitis virus as the cause of polio. How then has cigarette smoking
been identified as a contributing factor if it cannot be identified as the
cause? Cigarette smoking can serve as a good example of how health
effects of pollutants are determined although cigarette smoke is not regu-
lated the way other pollutants are regulated.
During the twentieth century with the widespread use of vaccination and
antibiotics, infectious diseases have ceased to be a primary cause of death.
The life span of people in the developed countries of the world has length-
ened considerably, and heart disease and cancer have become leading
causes of death, and it was observed during the early 1960s that lifelong
heavy cigarette smokers often died from lung cancer.
But how do we determine what people die of, and how is the death
related to a habit like heavy smoking? The cause of death listed on death
certificates, which are the source of much epidemiological information,
does not specify cigarette smoking as the cause of death. In order to relate
death from lung cancer to smoking, one must show that significantly more
4 ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AND CONTROL
lung cancer deaths occur in smokers than in nonsmokers. Such a showing
is called a standard mortality ratio (SMR) and is defined as:
observed deaths
SMR = ———
expected deaths
The number of "expected deaths" in the above equation is the number of
deaths from the particular disease (lung cancer in this case) that seem to
happen without any identifiable cause. In the general population of smokers
and nonsmokers, there are a certain number of lung cancer deaths. Even
in nonsmokers, there are a certain, albeit small, number of lung cancer
deaths. In this instance, then, the SMR can be defined as
SMR =
zr
where D = lung cancer deaths in a given population of smokers
s
D = lung cancer deaths in a nonsmoking population o fthe same size
m
In this instance, the SMR is 11/1. Since the SMR is significantly greater
than 1.0, we can say that cigarette smoke contributes significantly to lung
cancer, or as it is usually phrased, smoking cigarettes significantly
increases the risk of death from lung cancer. To be precise, the risk of
death from lung cancer is eleven times as high for a heavy smoker as for
a nonsmoker. Determination of the SMR tells something about the epi-
demiology of smoking, but not about its etiology.
There are three characteristics of epidemiological reasoning in this
example that are important:
• Not everyone who smokes heavily will die of lung cancer.
• Some nonsmokers die of lung cancer.
• Therefore one cannot unequivocally relate any given individual lung cancer
death to cigarette smoking.
Risk also can be expressed in other ways. One commonly used statistic
in risk analysis is the number of deaths from a given cause per 100,000
population. For example, in the United States there are 350,000 deaths
each year from lung cancer and heart disease that are attributable to smok-
ing. The United States has a population of 240 million. The risk of death
associated with the effects of cigarette smoking can thus be expressed as
deaths per 100,000 population or
350,000 146
=
240 x 106 100,000
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION 5
Table 1-1. Approximate Adult Deaths Annually per 100,000 Population
Cause of Death Deaths/105 Population
Cardiovascular disease 408
Cancer 193
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 31
Motor vehicle accidents 18.6
Alcoholism 11.4
Other causes 208
All causes 870
In other words, a heavy smoker in the United States has an annual prob-
ability (or risk) of 146 in 100,000 of dying of lung cancer or heart disease.
Table 1-1 presents some typical mortality statistics for the United States.
A third way to present risk statistics is as deaths from a given cause per
1000 deaths. For example, there are approximately 2.2 x 106 deaths
annually in the United States. Three hundred and fifty thousand of these,
or 160 per 1000 deaths, are related to heavy smoking.
In summary, risk of death due to some environmental cause can be
expressed in three ways:
1. Risk of death from being exposed to a given environmental pollutant (SMR)
number of deaths from a specific cause in a given population
exposed to an environmental pollutant
number of deaths from the same cause in a similar sized population
not exposed to that pollutant
2. Risk of death from a given cause
number of deaths associated with the cause in a given time
total population, all of whom will die due to some cause
3. Risk of death from a given cause
_ number of deaths associated with the cause
total number of deaths
Example 1.1
A butadiene plastics manufacturing plant is located in Beaverville, and
the atmosphere is seriously contaminated by butadiene, a suspected car-
cinogen. The cancer death rate in the community of 8000 is 36 people per
year and the total death rate is 106 people per year. Does Beaverville appear
to be a healthy place to live?