Marine Pollution Due to Waste Water Discharge in Kuwait

The first part of this report summarizes the article named “Marine pollution due to waste water discharge in Kuwait” by (Jassim A, Shatti & Tamama A. Abdallah) Published on 1999. This scientific article discussed the sea pollution and contamination of beach resulted from discharging the untreated waste water into the sea. As per (Pomare, 1988), the sea is considered the natural sink of all the wastes resulted from land activities such as waste water, industrial waste and agricultural waste. All these wastes contain many chemical pollutants which cause marine pollution.

Waste water treatment shall be implemented to reduce the percent of pollutants exist in the waste water to the allowable limit prior discharging into the sea. samples of treated waste water shall be taken and examined to check the quality of waste water and ensure that the composition complies with the international standards as per world health organization (WHO) and Local standard (EPA, 1993). The discharge of waste water into the sea without treatment is very dangerous as it will result in severe consequence on the community and human health. The percent of bacterium related to fecal pollution is used as indicator to measure the marine pollution (Hass, 1986).

As per (Moore, 1975) fecal coliform bacterium is the most known indicator. The measurement of the bacterium in the bathing water is very important to ensure the high quality of water. The pathogenic bacteria were classified into 3 categories which are bacteria (shigella, salmonella and vibrio cholerae), Enteroviruses and Helminthes. Kuwait has three big water treatment stations which located in Jahra, Ardiya and Riqqa, in addition to 17 pumping stations. All these plants and pumping stations are provided with emergency outfalls which allow the discharge of untreated waste water directly into the sea in case of emergency such as any mechanical or electrical failure occur at the system or breakdown of sewage pipeline. The pumping station A3 was chosen as a case study for this project. This study focused on studying and assessment of waste water discharge from outfall emergency of this station which located in Bneid Al Qar. The pollution indicators were used for this assessment included fecal streptococci and Coliform to measure pollution resulted from Bacteria and salmonella was selected from the various pathogens for this analysis. the diameter of emergency outfall is 1200 mm which opens at Bnied Al Qar beach to discharge untreated waste water and this occurs from two to three times every year in case of emergency.

Three types of samples were taken at the location of outfall emergency; the first type is water samples as these samples were taken from a point opposite to outfall emergency and bottled in polyethylene sample containers at temperature of 4? , then transferred to the laboratory for further investigations. The samples were collected from DEC 1997 till July 1998. The second type is sand samples where these samples were collected from points on the right and left sides of emergency outfall at the low tide of the sea. The last type chosen was shell samples. All the samples were sent to the laboratory where experimental investigation was done to determine the indicators of pollutions. The waste water was investigated against three types of pollutants are fecal coliform, Fecal streptococci and salmonella. The experimental results for the samples collected during a period of 8 months illustrated high concentration of the indicators fecal coliform, fecal streptococci and salmonella for the waste water samples taken at point A opposite to emergency outfall as the percent of fecal coliform was 370 colonies / 100 ml, for fecal streptococci was 50 colonies/100 ml and for salmonella was 50 colonies/100 ml. The high concentration of fecal indicators and pathogens was occurred to heavy rains in Kuwait during the period of samples taking which resulted in opening the emergency outfall to discharge the extra untreated waste water.

To conclude this study, the emergency outfall is opened only in case of emergency such as mechanical or electrical failure or receiving too much water like heavy rains. The discharge of waste water directly into the marine without treatment has dangerous effects on the human health and community as it contains fecal pollutants (fecal coliform, Fecal streptococci) and pathogens (Salmonella). the study mentioned that occasional discharge for short time of waste water in Kuwait is acceptable but if the discharge will continue for a long time or with huge quantities in the future so it is recommended that to use chemical substances like sodium hypochlorite (NAOCI) for treatment before discharge into to the sea. The second paper to be summarized in this report is the article “pollution of fresh groundwater from damaged oil wells, North Kuwait” by (A. Mukhopadhyay et. al) which published on 10 February 2017.

The fresh ground water in Raudhatahin and Umm Al-Aish Region was monitored since 1992 and the results showed that the ground water was contaminated by oil hydrocarbons. the hydrocarbons caused the pollution resulted from the damaged and destroyed oil wells during the Gulf war on 1991 which led to discharge of huge amounts of hydrocarbons to the surface of the land in this area as per (Al-Sulaimi et al. 1993). In addition to the sea water which was used to distinguish the fires on the oil wells after the war contaminated the land surface. The fresh groundwater accumulation in this area has a strategic importance to the state of Kuwait (Mukhopadhyay et al. 2008), thus the assessment of the pollution exist in the ground water is very important to know the current situation of the groundwater prior using any control measures to rectify the problem and this article focussed on this point as it presents an assessment of the monitoring results over this area from Jan 2012 to Oct 2015. The two mentioned areas in the north of Kuwait Raudhatain and Umm Al-Aish have the most of fresh groundwater exist in Kuwait. these freshwater bodies are located near to the oil fields in the Northern Kuwait, not only that but surrounded also by brackish and salty waters. The aquifers of fresh water for the two locations are below the depression of drainage basin of Raudhatain–Umm Al-Aish.

The system consists of 22 basins coming from all directions to the depression as defined by Al-Sulaimi et al. (1997). The aquifers of the two areas are hosted by Dibdiba Formation which lies below the lower Fars and gas formations. The layer near to the surface is merged with sands, gravels and little clay which located below Dibdiba formation. There are many variations in the levels of cementation for the formation and composed of siltstones, sand stones and conglomerates. As per the studies performed by Parsons Corporation on the years 1963 & 1964, Senay (1977) presented a cross section for the water aquifers located in Raudhatain field. The depth of freshwater aquifer is in the range between 24 to 45 m. the depth varies as per the height of ground surface from point to another point. The value of hydrodynamic gradient was found to be 2-8 ×?10?^(-4)m/m. Umm Al-Aish field water aqufiers is similar to Raudhatain field. The depth of the first field is about 8 m and the content of total dissolved solid (TDS) is less than 200 mg/l. The lower aquifer has effective thickness of about 18 m and the higher section includes brackish water and the lower section includes saline water.

The depth of freshwater for Umm Al-Aish field is in the range from 16 to 30 m. The ground water gradient for the region has a value of 2-4 ×?10?^(-4) to the northeast. This explains why the flow is in the down direction. The freshwater accumulations of the two fields Raudhatain and Umm Al-Aish fields are located in the wide aquifer. The best freshwater is located in the centre of aquifer and the salinity of the water increases gradually when moving away from the center of aquifer. The salinity varies from lowest value at the centre which is 1000 mg/l to the highest value of 5000 mg/l. salinity increase with the depth as it increased from 1000 to 7500 mg/l with a 15 m thickness. The ground freshwater can be naturally recharged by the rainfall on the two selected areas as per the studies done by Ebrahim et al. (1993). There are three ways to recharge the ground freshwater as mentioned by Parsons Corporation (1963, 1964). The first method is direct charge by the flow of Wadi, the second method is ponded water infilteration at the end of the Wadi and the final method is direct charge by the rainfall and the lateral flow to the fresh bodies accumulations. The real recharge occurs by the combination of the above three methods. To achieve the objective of this study, there are many steps shall be followed as mentioned by Johnson et al. (2006).

The first step is was to collect the samples from the wells in the period from January 2012 till April 2013. During this period, about four rounds to collect the ground water samples were implemented on 112 to 115 wells. The selected wells included both the polluted and unpolluted locations. After this period April 2013, the samples were taken and collected twice in the year from around 36 chosen wells till June 2015. The second step in the methodology was using the method of ultraviolet fluorescence (UV) to determine the percentage of hydrocarbons pollutants in the groundwater samples. The measurements of ultraviolet fluorescence were taken and recorded after filtration process of the samples. The devices used for the measurements were cary eclipse and four spectrofluorometer. The followed procedure for the fluorescence measurements is called (SOP-KERP-300) which prepared by (KISR) Kuwait institute for scientific research.

The method of florescence finger print is done by using emissions with wave length range from 240 to 670 nm in increment of one nm and the wavelength for excitation has range from 240 to 400 nm for 10 nm increment. While for the cyclohexane, the test was implemented by using emissions have wavelength from 250 to 650 nm within 5 nm increments, and the excitation wavelength from 250 to 420 nm for 10 nm increments. Computer algorithm was used to separate between Raman and Rayleigh signals by using commissioning substitutions functions. The fingerprints which carry good signal was used for making analysis and used for direct measurements of the water and the range of the emissions from 330 to 625 nm and for cyclohexane, the wavelength of the emissions is in the range from 250 to 505 nm, while the wavelength of emissions for excitation from 250 to 365 nm. Around the well, sample of oil contaminated soil was collected to be used for estimation of the quantity of oil which causes the contamination of the ground water and this was done through many steps. 20 mg of the standard soil was mixed with 200 ml of water for a period of 24 hours at certain laboratory conditions to prepare concentrated water leachate.

The standard operating procedure of control number SOP-KERP-300 (KNFP 2013) stated many calibrations standards equipped by using leachate dilutions. The cyclohexane which derived from the water leachates was prepared as per the method mentioned in the same procedure. The calibrated samples were exposed to the same conditions of fluorescence as done for the samples of water field. A wave length of 30 nm of fluorescence fingerprint was used for integration of the fluorescence signal, then the calibration curve was plotted based on 6 points and the correlation coefficient used is 0.995. The curve was done by enhancing the range of dilations for cyclohexane or water leachate. The contamination of the ground freshwater was estimated by relative quantities. A comparison was done among fluorescence signals as per the wave length mentioned above and relevant calibration line. Soil oil equivalent (SOE) units were used as indicators for contamination estimates. The total dissolved solids (TDS) and hydrocarbons content are varied through the depth.

The figures in the study illustrate the variations of both TDS and hydrocarbon level for the two contaminated locations. Figure 8 was plotted for Umm Al-Aish, while figure 9 represented the location of Raudhatain. For Umm Al-Aish site, the relation between TDS and Depth was direct relationship as TDS percentage increased when the depth increased but this occurred only for the first 10 meter, but for the next 10 meters, it decreased. The layers of the ground water tend to rearrangement as the water with high salt content will be heavy and denser so it will go down, while less salinity water will go up as it has lighter weight. The hydrocarbon level or concentration at the site P-33 U is decreased with increasing the depth. But at moderate depth, the concentration of hydrocarbons is higher than the top and the bottom levels. For the location of Raudhatain, at the site P-46 R, through the upper part of water column, with increasing the water depth, the salinity decreased.

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