The impact of commercially treated oil and gas produced water discharges on bromide concentrations and modeled brominated trihalomethane disinfection byproducts at two downstream municipal drinking water plants in the upper Allegheny River, Pennsylvania, USA.

In 2010, a dramatic increase in the levels of total trihalomethane (THM) and the relative proportion of brominated species was observed in finished water at several Pennsylvania water utilities (PDW) using the Allegheny River as their raw water supply. An increase in bromide (Br−) concentrations in the Allegheny River was implicated to be the cause of the elevated water disinfection byproducts. This study focused on quantifying the contribution of Br− from a commercial wastewater treatment facility (CWTF) that solely treats wastes from oil and gas producers and discharges into the upper reaches of the Allegheny River, and impacts on two downstream PDWs. In 2012, automated daily integrated samples were collected on the Allegheny River at six sites during three seasonal two-week sampling campaigns to characterize Br− concentrations and river dispersion characteristics during periods of high and low river discharges. The CWTF discharges resulted in significant increases in Br− compared to upstream baseline values in PDW raw drinking water intakes during periods of low river discharge. During high river discharge, the assimilative dilution capacity of the river resulted in lower absolute halide concentrations, but significant elevations Br− concentrations were still observed at the nearest downstream PDW intake over baseline river levels. On days with active CWTF effluent discharge the magnitude of bromide impact increased by 39ppb (53%) and 7ppb (22%) for low and high river discharge campaigns, respectively. Despite a declining trend in Allegheny River Br− (2009–2014), significant impacts from CWTF and coal-fired power plant discharges to Br− concentrations during the low river discharge regime at downstream PDW intakes was observed, resulting in small modeled increases in total THM (3%), and estimated positive shifts (41–47%) to more toxic brominated THM analogs. The lack of available coincident measurements of THM, precursors, and physical parameters limited the interpretation of historical trends.