Many of Southern California's lakes and reservoirs serve as both drinking water sources and as recreation areas. Personal watercraft and other motorized vehicles add potentially harmful compounds, such as benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene (BTEX), and gasoline combustion by-products to the water. Because these compounds are present in trace amounts, they often go undetected in traditional laboratory analysis. An effective predictive model has been developed that provides a tool for estimating gasoline and gasoline combustion by-products without frequent, cost-prohibitive analysis. This model takes into account several environmental factors, such as atmospheric deposition, in order to isolate the effects of vehicle traffic. Atmospheric deposition is expected to be a significant secondary source of combustion by-products, in particular polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Time-average concentrations of BTEX and PAHs are measured in the surface water under steady-state conditions, and correlated with vehicle traffic and deposition rates.

Developing a predictive model for gasoline and gasoline by-products in surface waters of Southern California

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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