Multimedia Mercury Cycling in a Legacy Contaminated Tropical Montane Forest (Kodaikanal, India) and Implications for Monitoring and Assessment of Future Contaminated Regions
Publication: Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 24, Issue 4
Abstract
We use a multimedia mass balance model to assess mercury cycling in a contaminated tropical montane forest section, in Kodaikanal in South India. The forest section received more than 1,300 kg of direct mercury release from a now-defunct thermometer manufacturing factory between 1984 and 2002, and continues to receive rainfall runoff from the factory. Modeling results suggest that a complete or partial cleanup of factory soil in 2020 will marginally reduce the level of contamination of forest soil by 2050 compared with a no-cleanup scenario. Mass balance analysis showed that the dominant source of mercury to forest changed from atmospheric deposition in the uncontaminated forest to direct inputs and runoff of mercury from the factory. Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis showed that the most sensitive parameters influencing the fate of mercury in the forest (for example, mass in soil or vegetation, and runoff to downstream) changed from those describing atmospheric deposition in the uncontaminated forest to those describing direct inputs and runoff of mercury from factory or forest soil and the partitioning of mercury to soil. Forest soil now acts and will continue to act as a source of mercury to downstream locations. For a better assessment of the effects of mercury pollution from any future contaminated sites, parameters such as sediment runoff, partitioning of mercury to soil, concentration of mercury species in air, and concentration of mercury in factory and forest soil must be regularly measured.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the DST-Inspire grant (IFA-13 EAS-10) to AQ and the MHRD PhD fellowship to KS. The content and views expressed in the paper are of the authors alone and do not reflect the view of the institute or the funding agencies. We thank Supriti Pramanik for help in making Fig. 1.
References
Bagyaraj, M., T. Ramkumar, S. Venkataramanan, S. Y. Chung, and B. Gurugnanam. 2014. “Assessment of soil erosion probability in Kodaikanal, India using GIS and remote sensing.” Diaster Advances 7 (2): 36–49.
CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board). 2019. “List of hazardous waste contaminated dump sites in the country (as per the information received from SPCBs).” Accessed November 10, 2019. http://164.100.107.13/LIST_OF_HW_CONTAMINATED_SITES.pdf.
Do-Thu, N., A. Morel, H. Nguyen-Viet, P. Pham-Duc, K. Nishida, and T. Kootattep. 2011. “Assessing nutrient fluxes in a Vietnamese rural area despite limited and highly uncertain data.” Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 55 (9–10): 849–856. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2011.04.008.
Hiddleston, S. 2010. “Poisoned ground.” Frontline 27 (19): 4.
IPEN (International Pollutants Elimination Network). 2016. Guidance on the identification, management and remediation of mercury contaminated sites. IPEN. http://www.mercuryconvention.org/Portals/11/documents/2016%20call%20for%20submissions/IPEN%20Guidance%20on%20Mercury%20Contaminated%20Sites%20INC%207%202016.pdf.
Karthik, R., A. Paneerselvam, D. Ganguly, G. Hariharan, S. Srinivasalu, R. Purvaja, and R. Ramesh. 2017. “Temporal variability of atmospheric total gaseous mercury and its correlation with meteorological parameters at a high-altitude station of the South India.” Atmos. Pollut. Res. 8 (1): 164–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apr.2016.08.010.
Limpert, E., W. A. Stahel, and M. Abbt. 2001. “Log-normal distributions across the sciences: Keys and clues: On the charms of statistics, and how mechanical models resembling gambling machines offer a link to a handy way to characterize log-normal distributions, which can provide deeper insight into variability and probability—normal or log-normal: That is the question.” BioScience 51 (5): 341–352. https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0341:LNDATS]2.0.CO;2.
MacLeod, M., M. Scheringer, T. E. McKone, and K. Hungerbuhler. 2010. “The state of multimedia mass-balance modeling in environmental science and decision-making.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 44 (22): 8360–8364. https://doi.org/10.1021/es100968w.
Montangero, A., and H. Belevi. 2008. “An approach to optimise nutrient management in environmental sanitation systems despite limited data.” J. Environ. Manage. 88 (4): 1538–1551. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2007.07.033.
NEERI (National Environmental Engineering Research Institute). 2015. Interim Report: Assessment of mercury levels in Soil, Sediment, Bark, Lichen and Moss and fish samples from Pambar River and Kodai Lake off-site of Hindustan Unilever Limited factory (HUL), Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India.
News18. 2018. “NGT Rejects “Conflict of Interest” Charge, Clears Way for Kodaikanal Mercury Remediation.” News18, November 19, 2019. https://www.news18.com/news/india/ngt-rejects-conflict-of-interest-charge-clears-way-for-kodaikanal-mercury-remediation-1934609.html.
NGT (National Green Tribunal). 2018. Orders of the tribunal. Before the National Green Tribunal Principal Branch, New Delhi. Original Application No. 211 of 2018 (M.A. No. 1011/2018 & M.A. No. 1125/2018) (Earlier O.A. No.22/2017) (SZ). New Delhi, India: NGT.
Qureshi, A., M. MacLeod, and K. Hungerbühler. 2011. “Quantifying uncertainties in the global mass balance of mercury.” Global Biogeochem. Cycles 25 (4): GB4012. https://doi.org/10.1029/2011GB004068.
Selin, N. E. 2009. “Global biogeochemical cycling of mercury: A review.” Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 34 (1): 43–63. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.environ.051308.084314.
Sharma, D. C. 2003. “Concern over mercury pollution in India.” Lancet 362 (9389): 1050. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(03)14456-X.
TNPCB (Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board). 2001. TNPCB- M/s Hindustan Unilever ltd. (Thermometer Factory), Kodaikanal—Direction for closure of the unit under section 5 of the environment (protection) Act. 1986 for stoppage of power supply—Orders issued—Regading. Proc. No. HWMM/4280/TNPCB/2001-1. Chennai, India: TNPCB.
UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme). 2013. “Minamata convention on mercury.” Accessed November 19, 2019. http://www.mercuryconvention.org/.
URS Dames and Moore. 2002. Environmental site assessment and preliminary risk assessment for mercury, Kodaikkanal Thermometer Factory, Tamil Nadu. Mumbai, India: HLL.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 24 • Issue 4 • October 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 6, 2019
Accepted: Feb 25, 2020
Published online: May 28, 2020
Published in print: Oct 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Oct 28, 2020
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.