Pollutants from wildfires can linger in the water supply long after the flames are out. The findings are from a new study that looked at more than 500 watersheds across the Western U.S.
Scientists found that water stays cloudy with sediment and full of nitrogen and phosphorus for up to eight years after a wildfire.
The University of Colorado’s Carli Brucker worked on the study and says that makes the water much harder to clean.
"The biggest impact is really to the water treatment facilities themselves, and, you know, having to invest millions of dollars into increased treatments or repairing damages due to too much debris flowing into the treatment plants," Brucker said.
She and other scientists found levels of sediment, organic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus can be more than one hundred times higher after a wildfire.
"In areas of the Western U.S. with these more forested areas, they're not only more prone to wildfires and have these like large fuel sources, but we see that those also drive higher, higher loads of sediments and contaminants," Brucker said.
Brucker says upgrades to water treatment systems are becoming more important as wildfires in the West get bigger and more intense.
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Carli Brucker led the study of 100,000 samples from 500 watersheds across the western U.S. Their findings: Contaminants like nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon were in that water and, in some cases, stayed in it for years.
