Pollution (Chemical and Biological)

A method and apparatus for removing selenate from waste water through the use of selenate respiring microorganisms under substantially anoxic conditions is described. The method includes a first zone for removing nitrate by assimilation into biomass. (Full details available at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website for patents 5,271,831 and 5,009,786.)

Some water is just unpleasant to drink—it’s cloudy, or it smells or tastes bad. Some drinking water discolors teeth or skin, stains laundry or plumbing fixtures, or corrodes or clogs pipes. These effects are caused when some naturally occurring constituents occur at concentrations high enough to be a nuisance, and are particularly common where groundwater is used as a drinking water supply.

Is water quality getting better or worse? Answering this deceptively simple question has been a fundamental objective of the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment Project’s research. Learn about trends in contaminants in the nation’s streams and rivers, trends in contaminants that collect in the bed sediment of streams and lakes, and changes in the quality of the nation’s groundwater.

Stream, river, and lake bed sediment are reservoirs for many contaminants. These contaminants include some “legacy” contaminants, like DDT, PCBs, and chlordane, and chemicals currently in use, like the insecticide bifenthrin and many flame retardants. Learn about techniques used to study sediment-associated contaminants and their importance to aquatic biota.

Who lives in your stream? Rivers and streams, even small ones, are teeming with a vast number of species, including fish, aquatic invertebrates, and algae. Stream ecology is the study of those aquatic species, the way they interrelate, and their interactions with all aspects of these flowing water systems.

Since 1998, the USGS-National Park Service Water-Quality Partnership has supported 217 projects to protect and improve water quality in 119 national parks. These USGS-NPS collaborative projects support science-based resource management by the National Park Service to address critical water-quality issues for many of our Nation's most highly valued aquatic systems.

On August 5, 2015, U.S. EPA was conducting an investigation of the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado. While excavating as part of the investigation, water began leaking from the mine tunnel, and about three million gallons of water and sediment were released into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River. The USGS provided pre- and post-release water-quality and streamflow data from...