A sewer main serving a large municipal wastewater system ruptured, discharging approximately 3,000,000 gallons (11,355,000 L) of raw human sewage into a multi-branched tidal creek estuary along the US East Coast. The biochemical oxygen demand caused severe hypoxia in the system, causing a large fish kill. The sewage load led to high fecal coliform bacteria concentrations in the creek (maximum o...

Oxygen microelectrodes were used to analyze the distribution of the diffusive boundary layer (DBL) at the sediment-water interface in relation to surface topography and flow velocity. The sediment, collected from saline ponds, was covered by a microbial mat that had high oxygen consumption rate and well-defined surface structure. Diffusion through the DBL constituted an important rate limitat...

Floating platforms at the hydropower plant reservoirs are attractive sites for aquaculture, fishing and other recreational activities. However, the unregulated construction of these platforms may negatively affect the fauna, flora and water quality of reservoirs. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the impact of floating platforms on the limnological aspects of Nova Ponte hydropower plant reserv...

The widespread contamination by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has created a need for cost-effective bioremediation processes. This research studied a chronically PAH-contaminated estuarine sediment from the East River (ER; NY, USA) characterized by high concentrations of PAHs (approximately 4-190 ppm), sulfide, and metals and a marine sediment from New York/ New Jersey Harbor (NY/NJH;...

Sediment oxygen demand (SOD) contributes immensely to hypolimnetic oxygen depletion. SOD rates thus play a key role in aquatic ecosystems’ health predictions. These rates, however, can be very expensive to sample. Moreover, determination of SOD rates by sediment diagenesis modeling may require very large datasets, or may not be easily adapted to complex aquatic systems. Water quality modeling f...

Bioirrigation or the transport of fluids into the sediment matrix due to the activities of organisms such as bloodworms (larvae of Diptera, Chironomidae), has substantial impacts on sediment respiration in lakes. However, previous quantifications of bioirrigation impacts of Chironomidae have been limited by technical challenges such as the difficulty to separate faunal and bacterial respiration...

Nitrogen removal in treatment wetlands is influenced by many factors, and the presence of electron donors (biodegradable organic matter) and electron acceptors (nitrate ions) is the main limiting one; for obtaining these conditions, multistage treatment wetlands (MTWs) are required, where an extensive nitrification can be obtained in the first stages under aerobic conditions leaving then to the...

With the increasing use of landfill sites, leachates produced by uncontrolled waste disposal have became a serious threat for the aquatic environment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the genotoxicity of leachate and of well water sampled close to the town of Settat in Morocco using the micronucleus test and proliferation kinetics of human peripheral blood lymphocytes in vitro. We also ana...