INVESTIGATION OF INDUSTRIAL EFFLUENT & DRINKING WATER QUALITY NEAR UTTARA EPZ AREA OF NILPHAMARI

The standard of drinking water has a significant impact on public health. The Uttara Export Processing Zone (Uttara EPZ) produced effluent and dumped it in a pond. The groundwater may become contaminated by long-term discharge. The purpose of conducting this research was to determine whether the industrial effluent disposal was within the acceptable range and if it had any adverse effect on drinking water sources nearby the Uttara EPZ area in Nilphamari. The ECR 1997 standard is used to compare test results from industrial wastewater samples, whereas some parameters, such as DO (0.3 to 1.4 mg/l), BOD5 (56 to 202 mg/l), and COD (70 to 269 mg/l), exceed the standard limit and other parameters are within acceptable limits. Some parameters of the drinking water sample, such as TC (0 to 112 N/100 ml), FC (0 to 4 N/100 ml), and Mn (0.6 to 2.4 mg/l), exceed the permitted limit. The DWQI analysis for STW 1 is 180.3462, STW 2 is 158.5436, and STW 3 is 426.2846, indicating that the sources of STW 1 and STW 2 have poor water quality, respectively, while STW 3 is unfit for drinking. The sample of drinking water is unfit for consumption.