Use of Reclaimed Water On Golf Courses: Leaching Potential of Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Compounds.

Due to on-going and anticipated water scarcity, there is an increased use of reclaimed wastewater for irrigating landscapes in regions such as the southwestern U.S. However, to date little is known about the fate and transport of emerging contaminants such as pharmaceutical and personal care products and endocrine disrupting compounds (PPCP/EDCs) from reclaimed water in landscape systems receiving such recycled water through irrigation. We carried out a plot-scale study to evaluate the leaching potential of a range of PPCP/EDCs in turfgrass with the goal to understand the role of turfgrass as a biofilter in mitigating the leaching risk of PPCP/EDCs. Tertiary treated water was used as the sole irrigation source to irrigate fescue plots containing a sandy loam and a loamy sand at two irrigation rates. Leachate was collected continuously and occurrence of a total of 15 PPCP/EDCs was monitored for 4 months. In this presentation, we will report on the study design, analytical methods, as well as frequency and levels of PPCP/EDCs found in the input water and leachate samples.