Homework 2
Due: October 7, 2022
Question 1
[50 points]
Love Canal is one of the most disastrous environmental tragedies in American history. In the
1900’s it was envisioned that by digging a short canal between the upper and lower Niagara
Rivers power could be generated cheaply to fuel the industry and homes in the area. However
the project was abandoned midway and the canal was turned into a municipal and industrial
chemical dumpsite. Some of the chemicals that were dumped underground included:
polychlorinated dibenzodioxins, trichlorophenol (TCP), chlorobenzenes, and benzyl chlorides
.
Landfills can of course be an environmentally acceptable method of hazardous waste disposal,
assuming they are properly sited, managed, and regulated. However, in 1953, the Hooker
Chemical Company, then the owners and operators of the property, covered the canal with earth
and sold it to the city. The city permitted to build a school, apartments, and private homes. In the
late '50s, about 100 homes and a school were built at the site. In the late 70’s residents started
seeing suspicious black fluids and chemicals in their backyard. The health impacts to the
community included: leukemia, birth defects, and miscarriages.
1
Imagine that (
in late 70’s
) you were tasked to model the concentration of benzene
hexachloride (also called lindane (C
6
H
6
Cl
6
),
one of the potent pollutants, 50 ton of which was
stored underground in the dumpsite
) in the different medium of interest (without direct
measurements using any scientific equipment). As a first order approximation you decide to do
an equilibrium calculation (
which could be a reasonable assumption since more than 20 years
had passed
) to estimate the concentration of benzene hexachloride in: 1) the air the residents
breathe; 2) the surface water from a small lake that the residents use; 3) the soil in which the
vegetation grows; 4) the fish present in the surface water; 5) the suspended solids in the surface
water; and 6) the sediment underneath the surface water. To achieve this you have to first model
(represent) the environment of interest (Love Canal) and then perform a multimedia equilibrium
calculation.
Part A
: Determine the dimensions and property of the environment (See 2D pictorial
representation in the below figure). The environment of interest is the 16-acre Love Canal
Landfill. The atmospheric layer where uniform mixing is achieved can be considered to be of 1
km depth. A surface water coverage of 1/50
th
(a pond) of the land surface to a depth of 20 m can
be assumed and soil covering the remaining land surface to a depth of 5 m (the depth at which
the chemical containers were buried assuming the surface underneath was sealed) can be
assumed. The sediment at the bottom of the surface water can be assumed to be of the depth of 1
cm. The concentration of suspended solids in the surface water can be assumed to be 7.4 mg/l.
Assume an average fish volume of 1 L per fish with one fish for every 100 m
3
of surface water.