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posted by takyon on Wednesday December 09 2015, @11:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the glowing-review dept.

Writing in the August edition of Environmental Science and Technology Letters, Jason Nolan and Karrie A. Weber of the University of Nebraska report unsafe levels of uranium in groundwater from California's San Joaquin Valley and from the Ogallala Aquifer underlying Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming and South Dakota.

In Natural Uranium Contamination in Major U.S. Aquifers Linked to Nitrate they note a correlation between concentrations of uranium and nitrate ions in the groundwater samples they tested. They theorize that the nitrate, a major component of fertilizer, can oxidize uranium from U(IV) to U(VI), making it water-soluble. They found that in the San Joaquin Valley, uranium reached as much as 180 times the maximum contaminant level (MCL) set by the Environmental Protection Agency, and nitrate was as much as 34 times the MCL. Samples from the Ogallala Aquifer had as much as 89 times the MCL of uranium and 189 times the MCL of nitrate.

Water from these aquifers is used for drinking and for irrigation. Soluble uranium is bioaccumulated by certain food crops; uranium in the human body can result in cancer and kidney damage.

The Associated Press also reported on the story.


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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday December 09 2015, @08:33PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 09 2015, @08:33PM (#274105) Journal
    What makes those levels of uranium concentrations unsafe? Remember the EPA sets such levels extremely low because uranium is nuclear and hence, scary to a fair portion of the voting public.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @12:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @12:57AM (#274181)

    Uranium is indeed regulated as a radionuclide [epa.gov]. The limit, however, was chosen because of its chemical properties:

    [...] The limits for many chemicals and contaminants are health-based limits calculated by assuming that a person drinks two liters of water a day for 70 years. The safe limits are known as Maximum Contamination Limits or MCL’s. EPA considers water above the MCL as being unsafe. The MCL for uranium in public drinking water is 30 micrograms per liter (30 ug/L). [...] The MCL for uranium was established because of its toxicity as a heavy metal which may result in kidney damage over time. There may also be a small increase in cancer risk over the course of a lifetime. The EPA has estimated that the additional lifetime cancer risk associated with drinking water that contains 30 ug/L (the MCL for uranium) is about 1 person in 10,000 who drinks two liters of uranium-contaminated water a day for 70 years. Bathing and showering with water that contains uranium is not a health concern.

    —http://www.wupdhd.org/environmental-health/water-supply-protection-well-program/uranium-and-fluoride-advisory/what-you-need-to-know-about-uranium-in-private-well-water/