Influencia del basurero municipal en la calidad del agua del acuífero de la ciudad de Durango, México

In the city of Durango, for more than 15 years, a daily average of 400 ton of garbage has been disposed in a place that does not have the required infrastructure for sanitary landfill operation, with the consequent risk of migration of pollutants to the nearby aquifer. The quality of the water of 20 wells located around the dump site, within a radius of 5 km, was determined. The parameters were measured quarterly for a one-year period. The results show that 35 % of the wells exceed the limits set for fecal coliforms and 15 % of them exceed the recommended value for nitrate contents (NOM-127-SSA1-1994). On the other hand, the contents of hardness, chlorides and conductivity are markedly higher in the wells nearest to the dump site, where in an 18 year-old lapse they have increased from 85 mg/L, 6.9 mg/L and 250 μS/cm, to 334 mg/L, 149 mg/L and 1039 μS/cm, respectively. This indicates that the quality of the aquifer has been modified and the probable cause is the infiltration of the dump site leachates.