Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy

Stakeholder Forum - 1998

IMPLEMENTING THE BINATIONAL TOXICS STRATEGY
Mercury Workgroup

Mercury Source Sector Assessment for the Great Milwaukee Area
Chapter 4:  Re-Releases of Mercury from Municipal Wastewater Treatment

Introduction

In this section, a release table is provided for the Municipal Wastewater Treatment source sector. This source sector represents “re-release” which includes mercury discharged to the sewer system from industries, hospitals, dental facilities and others. Mercury use and releases from many of these sources are estimated in other source sectors. The municipal wastewater treatment sector was included for comparison purposes, as well as to illustrate the fate of some of the mercury releases in the Greater Milwaukee Area.

This source sector includes mercury released due to : wastewater discharge, sludge, volatilization from aeration operations and volatilization from the sludge drying and dewatering process.

Detailed calculations for mercury in municipal wastewater treatment are provided in Appendix B. Re-releases are summarized in Table 4 and Figure 5.

Re-Release document available [PDF 490Kb, 81pps]