Assessing the Chemical Composition of Wastewater Released from Hawassa Castel Brewery Plant and its Impact on Groundwater

Abstract

Brewery plants have been known to cause pollution if they have no proper environmental safety systems by discharging effluent into the receiving stream, ground water and soil. The study aims to assess the physicochemical composition of wastewater generated from Hawassa Castel brewery plant and its impact on the surrounding environment particularly on the quality of ground-water. Thus, the study was conducted on samples taken from effluents of Hawassa Castel brewery plant and ground water from the nearby areas. Physicochemical parameters such as pH, temperature, DO, BOD, COD, TDS, TSS, EC, turbidity, nitrate, phosphate, sulphate, NH3-N, chloride, TN and TP were analyzed both for effluent samples and groundwater samples. Brewery effluent samples were collected from three sampling stations S1 (brewery effluent discharge point), S2 (50 m from brewery effluent discharge point downstream), and S3 (100 m from brewery effluent discharge point downstream) and four groundwater samples namely G1, G2, G3, G4 were also collected from near Hawassa Castel brewery plant. Groundwater samples G1 and G2 were collected approximately 30 m away from effluent discharge point and groundwater samples G3 and G4 were collected 100 m away from the stream. The parameters monitored for the quantitative analysis of brewery wastewater and ground water. The values of BOD (70.9 ± 7.69 mg/L), COD (178.5 ± 42.8 mg/L), TDS (135.5 ± 34.3 mg/L), turbidity (7.44 ± 0.77 NTU), and phosphate (9.08 ± 4.6 mg/L) were found to be above the permissible industrial effluents discharge limits. Moreover, the presence of high levels of TDS (462.8 ± 216.8 mg/L), TSS (143.7 ± 62.7 mg/L), EC (2370.9 ± 595 μS/cm), nitrate (43.5 ± 21.3 mg/L), phosphate (0.61 ± 0.13 mg/L), and chloride (931.9 ± 42.7 mg/L) in the ground-water samples were immensely polluted by anthropogenic activities and making it unsuitable for drinking purpose. Thus, the concerned bodies should act to prevent further deterioration of the quality of groundwater.