Persistent impacts of an abandoned non-sanitary landfill in its surroundings.

The inadequate disposal of solid waste, a common practice in developing countries, can represent an important pollution source since the closure of these deposits typically does not include the adoption of monitoring, isolation, or remediation techniques. Even so, several disposal areas are abandoned, without performing long-term monitoring in order to evaluate the depletion of contaminants' concentrations. This research aimed at comparing current and historical physicochemical data of water resources surrounding a non-sanitary landfill situated in a Guarani Aquifer recharge zone. The primary objective was to recognize whether significant changes in contaminants concentrations occurred, as well as if the area still poses a significant threat to the environment, 20 years after ending disposing activities. Samples from eight monitoring wells and three surface water points (upstream and downstream to the deposit) were evaluated in the periods of 1996-1997 and 2016-2019. The parameters pH, electrical conductivity (EC), alkalinity, chemical oxygen demand (COD), oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), chloride, nitrate, iron, manganese, calcium, and magnesium were investigated. Contamination has been detected in the landfill surroundings since the ending of the waste disposal (1996-1997), even though its intensity reduced within short distances from the waste mass. Nevertheless, no statistical variation occurred in 20 years' time considering COD, chloride, calcium, magnesium, and ORP. Moreover, increases of EC, pH, alkalinity, iron, and manganese concentrations were observed for the years of 2016-2019. The results indicate that the evaluated contaminants do not suffer depletion in the surroundings of non-sanitary landfills in sandy aquifers, considering a time span of 20 years. This study also suggests that those areas need to be adequately remediated to permit other future land uses.

Long-term geophysical monitoring of an abandoned dumpsite area in a Guarani Aquifer recharge zone.

Even though attenuation processes in the subsurface are known to reduce the impacts of contaminant plumes, their importance is significantly dependent on geological and climatic characteristics, as well as on the leachate quality. The knowledge of attenuation processes linked to different geological formations is therefore fundamental in predicting the impacts of waste disposal areas. Geophysical methods are useful tools for assessing and delineating contaminant plumes, as well as their changes with time, which enables their lower-cost monitoring and association with geological and environmental properties. This paper shows the results of geophysical surveys conducted in the years of 1996, 2005 and 2018 in a waste disposal area located at a Guarani Aquifer recharge zone in Brazil. The objective of this study was to show the evolution of the contamination plume, as well as discuss some possible transport and attenuation processes that the contaminants may undergo in similar areas. Five geophysical sections surveyed within a time span of 20 years were compared, and the information was integrated with physicochemical data from monitoring wells. The results show a horizontal plume spreading, reaching about 200 m from the deposit and about 60 m of depth, 20 years after the ending of disposal activities. The measured resistivities in 2018 are similar to the ones found in 1996 and 2005 in the same surveyed areas, showing that a significant temporal attenuation did not occur. Moreover, samples collected close to anomaly zones and within a distance of 200 m from the deposit presented concentrations of some heavy metals above the screening values according to the Brazilian legislation, showing a metals mobility higher than previously expected, which can be possibly explained by the aquifer's acidic conditions. The estimated plume velocity was about 7 m/yr, a plume deepening was observed until about 50 m and changes in water flow direction and/or diffusion processes made the plume spread to areas previously regarded as upgradient. Therefore, the present paper shows that the rehabilitation of sites neighboring waste disposal sites (less than 200 m from it) did not seem to be feasible through natural attenuation in sandy soils and that the plume spreading is significant in this geological formation. Thus, abandoned disposal areas, constantly considered to be closed after the ending of disposal activities in developing countries, generate plumes which move silently and may reach areas of concern in the future.