Testing Water Quality and Its Correlation with Disease Diagnoses in Weakley County, TN

Methods

Summary

Sampling Techniques:

• Well Water Samples:
  • These samples will be taken from residents that have a well as the source of their residential water.  
• City Water Samples:
  • These samples will be taken from residents that have city water as the source of their residential water.  
• Community Water Samples:
  • These samples will be taken from residents that have a community well water resource as the source of their residential water.  

Water Testing Techniques:

• Atomic Absorption Spectrometry:

  
  

  • This method of testing will be used to test the water samples for higher concentrations of Pd, Cd, Hg, and As ions.  
  • Calibration curves will first be made from know concentrations of the ions and then the unknown samples from water resources will be tested.
  • The water samples will be placed in the spectrometer and the absorbance of the samples will be obtained.  
  • From the absorbance and the calibration curves the concentration of each ion will be obtained for each sample. 
  • Lamps for each element will be needed for the testing of each individual ion in the water samples.
• Atomic Emission Spectroscopy:
  • This method of testing will be used to test the water samples for low concentrations of Pd, Cd, Hg, and As ions.  
  • This method of determining concentration is similar to the Absorption Spectrometer and follows the same steps except for using different element lamps.  Multiple elements can be tested for in a water sample using Emission Spectroscopy.

Challenges

The first challenge of the experiment is to get residents of Weakley County to respond to our research survey so that we have residences willing to allow the research team to test their water resources.  The research team plans to overcome this challenge by publishing an article in the local paper, Weakley County Press, about the research and provide a link in the article to the survey.  The team also plans on setting up various stations around the county where we will advertise for free water testing with a brochure.  On the brochure we will provide a link to the survey.

A second challenge for the project is the large amount of water samples that will be obtained during the research.  We hope to remedy this by the size of 6-person team.  We also hope to take samples each week during the summer and each week from August to December, which will divide the workload up for the research team and spread the workload out throughout multiple months. 

A last hurdle for this research is the completing of the water quality probes and the creating of a process for residents to use these probes for residential water testing.  The team plans on purchasing a kit online with instructions for building the probes.  The team will also calibrate the probes and then donate the probes to the Weakley County Health Department.  Departments in the county will be contacted to determine which office and department the probes need to be donated.  There will be an advertisement campaign to inform residents in the county that water testing can now be done in the county if they want to request a water quality test for their residence.

Pre Analysis Plan

The research team hypothesizes that the presence of harmful metals will be found in water sources throughout Weakley County, especially those water sources that are not treated by local health and water departments.  The research team hypothesizes that the residences with a high concentration of harmful metals will also have a higher incidence of disease diagnoses for the residents.  

The research team plans on comparing the average concentration data of all city water, all well water, and all community well water sources to determine if a significant difference exists.  In addition, the safe levels of tested metals as recommended by the EPA will be compared to each water source's metal concentrations, to see if the difference is significant enough to warrant caution to residents.  

The rate of disease diagnoses for the state of Tennessee will be compared to city water residents, well water residents, and community well water residents to see if a significant difference can be found.  Whatever water source shows a significant difference in metal concentration is hypothesized to have a higher rate of disease diagnoses for the residents that use that water source.