Evaluation of ground water quality near Chandi Devi bridge solid waste dumping site at Hairdwar city, (Uttarakhand), India : A case study

Abstract

The present study observed groundwater quality around Chandi Devi bridge open dumping site at Hardwar (Uttarakhand), India. Five experimental sites viz. sites 2,3 and 5 (hand pumps) and two sites 4,6 (tubewells) within the vicinity of the dumpsite and a reference site viz. site 1 (hand pump) (Bilkeshwar temple) as a control about 5000 meter away, were selected to ascertain the influence of solid waste dumping on groundwater quality around the area. The study showed that physicochemical parameters viz temperature, colour, turbidity, pH, hardness, BOD, COD, fluoride and heavy metals ( lead and iron) of the ground water near the dumping sites-2,3,4,5,6 were higher than their counterpart parameters of the ground water at control site. However, arsenic was not detected in any sample of all the sites. The parameters viz., colour (2.08-3.49 hazen), turbidity (3.05-5.35 NTU), odour (agreeable), pH (7.46-7.80),fluoride (0.10-0.38 ppm), lead (0.00-0.032 ppm), iron (0.01-0.03 ppm) of ground water of all experimental sites were within permissible limits while the parameters BOD (3.73-3.21 ppm), hardness (240.41-203.15 ppm) at site-2, site-3 and DO (5.38-6.28 ppm) of all experimental sites were not found within permissible limits as prescribed by Bureau of Indian standards (2012). Although water was safe for drinking which may be due to higher infiltration rate of river Ganga and Eastern Ganga Canal water but higher value of temperature ( o C), colour (hazen), turbidity (ppm), hardness (ppm), BOD (ppm), COD (ppm) fluoride (ppm), iron (ppm) and lead (ppm) at site-2 was quite alarming. The study would help in making public awareness for waste sorting, adopting green technology and to predict level of contaminants in ground water produced by land filling dumping site.