The impacts of wildfires on source water quality and treatment have become an emerging area of interest to utilities. Wildfire can cause significant changes to watersheds that serve as sources of potable water and can impact both water quality and quantity. For example, the Cache La Poudre (CLP) watershed in Northern Colorado was impacted by the High Park fire, which burned from June 9th through July 1st of 2012. Following this wildfire, a series of projects were designed and conducted to 1) Evaluate the impact that the wildfire had on the properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM), specifically with respect to disinfection byproduct formation; 2) Establish the condition under which the source water could be effectively treated; and 3) Evaluate potential ways in which utilities could assess impacts on water quality and treatment performance. Overall, the effects of wildfire include enhanced nutrient release, mobilization of DOM and DBP precursors and overall enhancement in chemical addition to treat the impacted source waters. This presentation will discuss the results from different projects assessing the impact of wildfires on DOM exports from watersheds. <br/>

Assessing the impact of wildfires on water quality and treatment

2019 Fall National Meeting

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