Chemical contaminants

1. Chemical contaminants By: Laura Buel, Mallory Martz, and Brittany Malgrem

2. Heavy metals There are many ways that heavy metals can get into drinking water. • Mining • Construction • Industrial waste • Human waste • Acid rain breaking down soil and getting into nearest water supply

3. Heavy metals • Heavy metals are very dangerous because they tend to bioaccumulate. This means that the chemical can keep building up in humans and animals until they reach a toxic level. • Heavy metals can cause a variety of health problems including :cancer, gastrointestinal problems, increased blood pressure, brain damage, and many other adverse effects. • In high concentrations, heavy metals concentrations can lead to poisoning.

4. Organic Mercury(Hg) • Organic mercury is rarely found in drinking water. • Found in fish, microorganisms, and water plants. • Mercury poisoning can occur by eating fish with high levels of mercury. • High levels of mercury in the body leads to serious damage to the brain, nervous system and kidneys.

5. MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) -Chemical formula : (CH3) 3COCH3 -Evaporates quickly, flammable, and a colorless liquid that doesn’t mix well with water. -Where or what it is found in: - Gasoline -monitoring wells MTBE can get into the ground water and travel into drinking water systems by gasoline spills and leaking out of monitoring wells. -MTBE effects a person very little when it is inhaled or digested. When it contaminates water though, it gives it a bad odor and a bad taste to make it undrinkable.

6. Lead (Pb) Where or what it is found in : Occupational exposures: Plumbers, glass manufactures, printers, construction, bridge reconstruction, and paint strippers. -Environmental exposures : -lead-containing paint, soil/dust near industries, and plumbing leachate. -Human activity exposures : Glazed pottery/ stain glass making, firing ranges, and paint stripping. Lead gets into the body and contaminates it by simply being inhaled or digested in anyway. Once the lead bounds to the red blood cells, since it is fat soluble, it can travel into the brain and harm it. Lead can effect the nervous system : -paralysis of motor nerves, poor aptitude, and other effects on cognitive functions. Lead also has other effects on the body : -acute abdominal pain, kidney damage, high blood pressure, and adverse reproductive consequences. -Lead poisoning : High levels - Mental retardation, coma, convulsions, and death. Low levels – reduced IQ and attention span, impaired growth, reading and learning disabilities, hearing loss, and a range of other health and behavioral effects.

7. As (Arsenic) Where or what Arsenic is found in : - Most abundant place it is found is the Earth’s crust; most importantly, volcanic action. -Vapor that is generated from liquid or solid forms of arsenic salts at low temperatures. -mostly sea living organisms but sometimes in some specific on land organisms. -mining, smelting, and burning fossil fuels (contamination in air, water, and soil.) -The high temperature in volcanic action, coal-fired power plants, and burning vegetation is the main source of atmosphere contamination. (Adheres readily onto the surface of particles.) Once the air is contaminated, the particles are dispersed by the wind and then fall back down onto Earths surface because of the weight or because of rain. Which then contaminates the Earths surface. Arsenic gets into water systems after that by dissolving into the ground and then being carried to those water systems through ground water.

8. Arsenic continued What Arsenic does to the body if exposed: Long term: - cancer in skin, lungs, bladder, and kidneys. -skin changes like thickening of the skin and pigmentation. Short term: -Severe vomiting -Disturbances of the blood and circulation of the blood -Damage to the nervous system -Death If it isn’t deadly: -blood cell reduction can slow down -break up red blood cells in circulation -enlarge the liver -color the skin -produce tingling and loss of sensation in the limbs -brain damage.