A SURVEY OF ORGANIC CONTAMINANTS IN DRINKING-WATER, MINERAL-WATER ANDNATURAL-WATER IN EASTERN AND CENTRAL-EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Monitoring of organic pollution is becoming more and more important, b ecause the toxicity of many commonly used organic chemicals such as so lvents, pesticides and their metabolites are similar to that of toxic heavy metals. In this study we analyzed the organic sum parameters, ad sorbable organic halogen and total organic carbon, in drinking, minera l, river and lake waters collected from 20 countries in Europe from 11 7 locations. Analyses were done according to the standard methods. We found that the East European and Hungarian drinking waters contained m ore organic halogen and carbon than the West European ones. The minera l water wells in the North Slopes of the Caucasus Mountains in Russia are endangered, the water of some of the wells is not potable. The riv ers and lakes of Europe are polluted with organic halogens mainly from multisources. To our knowledge this is the first survey of organic su m parameters in this part of Europe.