Disinfection by-products (DBPs) are routinely measured in drinking water but less frequently in other treated waters such as wastewater. Produced waters are fluids that are co-produced with oil and gas production, and include brines with elevated concentrations of bromide (up to thousands of mg/L), an important inorganic precursor of several toxic DBPs. To determine if wastewater treatment plants in Pennsylvania that accept produced waters discharge greater amounts of brominated DBPs, water samples were collected from below outfalls of both commercial wastewater treatment plants (CWT) and publicly owned wastewater treatment plants (POTW) and analyzed for 29 DBPs (both regulated and non-regulated). Sites below CWTs had elevated concentrations (up to 8.5 μg/L) of dibromochloronitromethane. The water at one of the CWT outfalls was also analyzed for DBP precursors and had elevated concentrations of bromide (75 mg/L) and other organic DBP precursors (phenol at 15 μg/L). Waters below POTW outfalls had elevated numbers (up to 15) and concentrations of DBPs, especially brominated and iodinated trihalomethanes (THMs) (up to 12 μg/L total THM concentration) and brominated haloacetonitriles (up to 0.91 μg/L total haloacetonitriles). The resulting data indicate that higher concentrations of brominated DBPs are discharged in the effluents of CWTs or POTWs that treat produced waters than POTWs that do not treat produced waters. This finding is important to water quality because there are hundreds of known, or suspected, DBPs many of which are toxic or presumed to be toxic to humans and aquatic organisms.

Disinfection by-products formed during the treatment of produced waters at wastewater treatment plants

249th National Meeting (2015)

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