Radiological impact of hydrocarbon waste release on drinking water of ughievwen and udu communities, delta state Nigeria

Abstract

Well water quality has been characterized with constant and continuous changes via the interaction of rock, soil and natural nano-filters which terminates at the aquiferous layer for clean well-water collection. The continuous exploration and production of crude oil has resulted significant increase of unwanted elements such as naturally occurring radionuclides in the water-bed which necessitates this study. The study determines the radionuclides based health impact or hazards associated with drinking water from crude oil exploration/production release in Ughievwen and Udu communities of Delta State, Nigeria. Sixty well water samples (three samples from each community) were collected and analyzed using sodium iodide (Nal (Tl)) detector. The obtained mean values of ²³⁸U, ²³²Th and ⁴⁰K are 6.91 $\pm$ 1.62BqL⁻¹, 4.39 $\pm$ 1.47 BqL⁻¹ and 24.54 $\pm$ 1.59 BqL⁻¹ respectively. The ²³⁸U, ²³²Th and ⁴⁰K results showed that the measured values are higher than the world standard (UNSCEAR; WHO) and the control values The mean values of total annual effective dose of different age groups are: 11.08 mSvy⁻¹, 2.54 mSvy⁻¹, 1.93 mSvy⁻¹, 2.52 mSvy⁻¹, 7.03 mSvy⁻¹ and 1.12 mSvy⁻¹ respectively. While the mean committed effective dose of adult is 55.94 mSvy⁻¹. The total annual effective dose, committed effective dose, cancer risks and hereditary effects are all lower than recommended limit (WHO; ICRP; USEPA) and reported scientific values except 11.08 mSvy⁻¹ and 7.03 mSvy⁻¹ that are higher than limit. It is evident from obtained results that the drinking water may not be radiologically safe for use by the public, which necessitates routine monitoring and caution to circumvent increase in radiation and the radiological of the studied communities’ drinking water. This is to avoid long term radiological risk arising from accumulation of such release in the studied communities.