LEVELS OF URANIUM IN WATERS FROM SOME INDIAN CITIES DETERMINED BY FISSION-TRACK ANALYSIS

This paper describes the results of measurements on the traces of uran ium found in 24 water samples collected from various sources in four i mportant cities of Uttar Pradesh (India). The sources of water samples were municipal taps, private hand pumps, jet pumps and natural rivers , etc. Melinex-O plastic sheets of thickness similar or equal to 100 m icrons were used as detectors for the registration of fission tracks p roduced in the U-235 (n,f) reactions. In the case of treated drinking water samples collected from taps supplied by the water works departme nts of various cities (basic sources for these samples being tube-well s, dams and rivers in different cities as specifically indicated in th e paper), the values of uranium concentrations were found to lie betwe en 0.87 +/- 0.01 and 11.36 +/- 0.34 mu g/l. For the untreated water sa mples collected from private jet pumps and hand pumps, the U-contents were found to vary from 2.02 +/- 0.03 to 9.07 +/- 0.10 mu g/l. The lev els of uranium concentration in untreated river water samples of vario us cities collected directly from the river streams were found to rang e from 0.92 +/- 0.01 to 5.37 +/- 0.06 mu g/l. The average uranium inta ke resulting from the drinking tap waters in these cities has also bee n calculated. They are found to be much less than the maximum permissi ble limit of 40 mg/day in every case reported in this paper. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd