Emerging Contaminants in Leaching From Turf Irrigated with Wastewater.

Water scarcity in arid regions such as the Southwest of the U.S. is exacerbated by urbanization , droughts and climate changes. Reuse of treated wastewater is a viable option to augment the regional water supply, and one such reuse is landscape irrigation. However, treated water contains a wide variety of organic contaminants including pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs), and their fate in reuse practices must be understood. In this study, we irrigated turfgrass plots at 100 and 130% ETo using exclusively tertiary treated wastewater. Two soil types, a sandy loam and a loamy sand, were considered. Leachate from the 90-cm depth was collected and analyzed for the appearance of 15 PPCPs including common antibiotic, anticonvulsive, and anti-inflammatory drugs. After irrigation for 5 months, only trimethoprim, primidone, sulfamethoxazole, and carbamezapine were detected in the leachate. After correcting for leaching fraction, the fraction of PPCPs in the leachate was always very small (<5%, with the exception of trimethoprim in one treatment). Therefore, turfgrass acted as an effective biofilter in attenuating PPCPs in treated wastewater.