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Contaminants in Water. Megan, Brittany, Hector, Jon. . What is Nitrate?. What is phosphate?. Nitrate (NO3) is a compound that contains nitrogen and water. Nitrogen comes from decomposing organic materials like manure, plants, and human wastes. salt of phosphoric acid
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Contaminants in Water Megan, Brittany, Hector, Jon
. What is Nitrate? What is phosphate? • Nitrate (NO3) is a compound that contains nitrogen and water. Nitrogen comes from decomposing organic materials like manure, plants, and human wastes. • salt of phosphoric acid • Phosphates, also known as orthophosphates (PO -3 4 , HPO -2, H 4 2PO4 , and H3PO4) can be found in detergent, baking powders, toothpastes, cured meats, evaporated milk, soft drinks, processed cheeses
How Nitrate gets into our water. • Nitrate gets into our ground water by: • First, adding more nitrate fertilizer to the soil than a crop can use, will build up high levels of nitrate. • Second, manure and sewage contain both ammonia and organic forms of nitrogen, organic nitrogen may be converted to ammonia in the soil. • Finally, some plants, can take nitrogen out of the air and put it into the ground through their roots.
How phosphate gets into our water. • Lawn and garden fertilizers. • The phosphate washes into storm drains and into lakes and rivers. • Also grass clippings and leaves that fall on hard surfaces release there phosphorous into water sources.
Total dissolved solids. • Dissolved solids refer to any minerals, salts, metals, cations or anions dissolved in water. • TDS in drinking water originate from natural sources, sewage, urban run-off, industrial wastewater, and chemicals used in the water treatment process, and the nature of the piping or hardware used to move the water.
Why should we care? (TDS) • Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) is a measurement of everything in your water – good and bad. The amount of TDS in water affects its taste, too little TDS (soft water) , and water tastes flat and insipid. Most water that has high levels of TDS will contain high amounts of calcium and magnesium. When those minerals are present, high levels of TDS in drinking water will cause an unpleasant aftertaste. When water has high levels of calcium and magnesium, it is called hard water; water with low levels of calcium and magnesium is called soft water. • Soft Water is bad for your health. First, it doesn’t supply any minerals, and research shows that we don’t get enough minerals from our diet. Second, soft water is “hungry” water, meaning it wants more minerals. There is significant evidence that soft water will actually steal minerals from your body.
Why should we care? (Nitrate) • High nitrate levels in water can cause methemoglobinemia also known as baby blue syndrome. Which is when a child's stomach acid is not as strong as those of an adult or teen. This causes an increase in bacteria that can convert nitrate to nitrite. • Baby blue syndrome-a disease that affects the oxygen carrying capacity in infants blood.
Why should we care? (Phosphate) • Phosphates won’t hurt people unless they are present in very high concentrations. Even then, they will probably do little more than interfere with digestion. It is doubtful that humans will encounter enough phosphate in natural waters to cause any health problems.
