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The Texcoco River in central Mexico is polluted with domestic wastewater as a result of discharges of untreated or inadequately treated sewage. Since nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPEO) surfactants and their intermediate degradation products such as nonylphenol (NP) and NP mono- and diethoxylate (NP1EO, NP2EO) have been found in domestic wastewater and in surface waters near wastewater discharges in industrialized countries, the Texcoco River was sampled to determine whether these compounds were present. The results indicated that NPEOs were present at very high concentrations (> 100 microg/L) in the lower reaches of the Texcoco River, but unlike rivers in industrialized countries, relatively low concentrations of intermediate degradation products, including NP1EO, NP2EO, and NP, were present. The presence and fate of NPEOs compounds in wastewater treatment plants have been studied only in conventional treatment systems in industrialized countries. In this study, the fate of these compounds was studied in a pilot-scale treatment wetland constructed in the small community of Santa Maria Nativitas in the Texcoco River watershed. The treatment wetland removed > 75% of NPEOs from the domestic wastewater, but the greatest proportion of removal occurred in parts of the treatment wetland where sedimentation existed. This is the first report of NPEO compounds in the water resources of a developing country. These data indicate that construction of low-cost and technologically simple treatment wetlands may be one solution to reducing the impacts of contaminants from domestic sewage in developing countries, such as Mexico.

Phosphorus (P) can be an important nutrient in regulating primary productivity in lakes. The ability of lake sediments to retain P from external sources depends on the physiochemical characteristics of the sediment. To assess the P dynamics in Lake Istokpoga and the upper chain of lakes that drain into Lake Okeechobee, Florida, USA, sorption properties of batch sediment samples for Lakes Tohopekaliga, Cypress, Hatchineha, Kissimmee, and Istokpoga were characterized under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Langmuir model parameters fit the experimental data well (in general, r(2) > 0.70). There were strong correlations between P sorption and total C, total P, Ca, Mg, Fe, and Al (r = 0.83-0.97). Equilibrium P concentration values ranged between 0.001 and 0.192 mg L(-1) for aerobic conditions. A single-point isotherm (initial concentration, 5 mg L(-1)) was found for a wide range of sediment types, which allows estimation of the maximum potential sorption (S(max)) as 1.7 times the sorption (S(max) = 1.7 S(5)). Results suggest that although these sediments have high P sorption capacities, the lake sediments may release P into the water column by desorption under aerobic conditions if water-column P concentrations are low enough (<0.036 mg L(-1) for Lake Tohopekaliga and <0.003-0.027 mg L(-1) for the other four lakes). Current watershed management strategies must balance efforts to reduce P inputs into the lakes from point and nonpoint sources against lowering the water-column P concentration to such a low level that the lake sediments become a source of P to downstream Lake Okeechobee.