Former DDT factory in Pakistan revisited for remediation: severe DDT concentrations in soils and plants from within the area.

Asma Younas, Isabel Hilber, Shafique ur Rehman, Mahmood Khwaja, Thomas D Bucheli

Index: Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. Int. 20(4) , 1966-76, (2013)

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Abstract

A factory in Amman Garh near Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, produced dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) from 1963-1994. Consequently, earlier papers reported a soil contamination in the per mille range inside the former factory wall (88 m × 106 m) and up to 10 mg/kg of DDT in the surroundings in 2005-2007. The site within the factory wall was remonitored systematically in 2011 to complement the earlier data as a prerequisite for remediation, to put them in exposure context in a population developing area, and to suggest and evaluate the optimal remediation technique for the site. The contamination was drastically higher than the earlier published data, and the sum of DDT and its metabolites (ΣDDT) was up to 65% in the soil. Grasses, shrubs, and trees growing in this severely contaminated site had 50-450 mg/kgdw of ΣDDT. Thus, people living nearby and husbandry as well as wild animals are heavily exposed to DDT. The semiarid climate favors wind drift and deposition of the pollutant. Additionally, DDT from products of herbivore animals feeding on the contaminated plants will enter the food web. To overcome the exposure and distribution of the DDT, the site within the factory wall was capped with 1.5 m of soil. This remediation technique represents the easiest and least expensive solution. Nevertheless, DDT can still evaporate or leach, and groundwater can rise in this flood-prone area and thereby become contaminated, especially because a binding layer is missing.