Environmental Forensic Mystery - Pool and Soil Pollution Issues

http://www.environmentalpollutioncenters.org/
This movie describes a situation that many home owners may encounter. What if the neighbors complain that their pool and soil is polluted because of what you use on your property? And they could sue you? Environmental forensic scientists may help you with some basic testing to solve such issues before they go to trial. In this episode, Dr. Ioana Petrisor and Mr. Guy Chammas are the forensic scientists conducting the investigation.
DISCLAIMER: While the situation described by this video is based on real cases encountered by the forensic team members, the shooting locations have been chosen for demonstrative purposes only and do not have associated pollution issues.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• home pollution
• pool pollution
• soil pollution
• mystery
• nitrates
• pesticides
• law suites

[melikey1231]

Hey that guy is cute. He kinda looks like Morrissey. The other actors are pretty bad. I thought it was funny that he said the pool had been drained and was safe for the children to swim in, then took samples from the "clean" pool?? Oops.

[hildaoltean]

interesting topic im concerned about my pool now

[papaswami2005]

How does one know a priori that "little to no" pollution is expected? One major piece of empirical evidence is that a child turned blue. That suggests nitrates exist at elevated levels (or the child is a PKU baby who just had a lot of milk or drank a diet soda). If you don't expect pollutants, then why sample at all? Also, nitrates are water soluble - they don't settle. I laud the video for some of what it does but in many ways, it is spreading misinformation. I'll post a video response.

[PollutionAware]

I did found one flaw however, which was when he mentioned that the pool has been drained and refilled with water and thus is of no health concern. In such situation, why was a pool sample still checked? I suppose that the re-filling of the pool happened some time ago, which would still have allowed pollutants to settle in the pool?

[PollutionAware]

As for the amount of soil, there are standard amounts used by any lab for standard methods and detection limits. It is true that in some cases more soil could be collected but this is only if you want to check much below the usual lab detection limit. Obviously this was not the case here since the normal lab detection limits for common water parameters and pesticides are below the levels of health risk.

[PollutionAware]

As written in the descriptive part of the movie, this is just a demonstrative movie, so it should be judged as such. To me, the question about the pollutants had the role to confirm the team previous understanding of what pollutants are alleged in this case which is why it sounded repetitive.

Also, as an environmental professional myself, I can see why gloves are not necessary when little to no pollution is in fact expected, especially in a demonstrative project

[PollutionAware]

Overall, I enjoyed the movie and believe it is a topic of great interest as this situation may happen to many home owners. It proves that with some basic testing many possible future problems could be avoided, including unnecessary lawsuits.

[papaswami2005]

At the point when she says, "Do you know what chemicals, pollutants, were.....??", hadn't nitrates, blue baby syndrome, fertilizers already been mentioned three times? Out of nowhere she's convinced its pesticides??!

Here's some practical advice. When someone proclaims themselves an expert, ask for credentials!! Who are these people?! What are their qualifications? How bout wearing gloves when sampling? How do they know how much sample should be collected to be above detection limits?

[2009cbb]

Great video! Very helpful to understand practical problems involving environmental forensics issues.