INVESTIGATION OF THE USAGE OF EICHHORNIA CRASSIPES IN THE CLEANSING AND TREATMENT OF WASTE WATER

Abstract

The investigation of the usage of Eichhornia crassipes in the cleansing and treatment of waste water has been conducted. The study area of this investigation is the Warri River –NMU Jetty, which is situated on the Barrister Smooth Jetty of the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA) in Warri, Delta State of Nigeria. The Warri River is a cardinal navigational route in the Niger Delta geographical region, and it is quite a huge body of freshwater with latitude 5021’-6000’N together with longitude 5024’-6021’E that covers a surface area of 255 square kilometers doubled with a length of approximately 151 kilometers. Experimentally, three samples of water were taken at the NMU Jetty – along the NPA Warri River axis and a commonsensible number of water hyacinths in it and the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun – Water Test Laboratory were utilized for the physical, chemical and biological test assessment and the following water parameters were collated in the test laboratory for the three samples of water – Sample A, Sample B and Sample C: pH, turbidity, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, conductivity, total alkalinity, chloride, total hardness, biological oxygen demand, zinc, nitrate, total ion, lead and coliform count were taken and recorded. The results obtained show that the treated waste water has a high content of chloride of 592.19mg/L for the three samples of waste water treated as against the WHO standard of 250mg/L (max) and this will make the water to have detectable taste and harmful to human health, while the high content of coliform count of 50cfu/100ml indicates high risk of contracting a water-borne illness, and it needs to be checked. It is recommended a repeated water treatment should be embarked on the three treated samples waste water A, B and C respectively.