GROUND WATER QUALITY FROM PRIVATE WELLS. CASE STUDY: TARNA MARE - SATU MARE COUNTY

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to assess the ground water quality from nine private wells from Tarna Mare commune located in Satu Mare County. Tarna Mare the northernmost commune of Satu Mare County, it has a population of 3.774 inhabitants and a total surface of 44 km2. The commune is located along the Tarna Valley at the foothills of Oas Mountains. Tarna Mare background is rich in complex ores of non-ferrous metals (copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver). In order to evaluate the water quality, several physico-chemical parameters (pH, redox potential, total dissolved solids, electrical conductivity and salinity) were investigated. The samples were collected in October, November, December 2015 and January 2016. The results showed that the waters were acidic having the pH between 4.7 and 7.52, considerably lower than the limit imposed by national legislation (between 6.5 and 9.5). The investigated wells proved to have a relatively high contented of dissolved salts, having the electrical conductivity between 83.6 μS/cm and 908 μS/cm and the salinity between 0 and 0.4 ‰. Regarding the cations concentrations (mg / L) those ranged between: 21.55 – 318.19 for Na+, 16.42 – 556.43 for Ca2+, 5.27 – 149.48 for Mg2+ and 5.7 – 481.83 for K+. Li+ and NH4+ were not detected in analyzed samples.

Keywords

• ground water
• physico-chemical parameters
• dissolved cations
• Tarna Mare
• mining area.