Chemical Assessment of Lead in the Groundwater of Saharsa District, Bihar

Lead (Pb) is one of the seven metals of antiquity. It is established fact that excess of everything or anything is harmful and ultimately poisonous and so is for Lead also. It is believed that one of the main reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire was endemic lead poisoning due to over exposure to lead. Sweetening of wine with lead salts caused an endemic disease called ‘lead colic’. Present paper reports the concentration of Lead (Pb) in the groundwater of Saharsa District, Bihar which is situated at latitude 25035–26028’ N and longitude 86018’– 86051’ E. All the ten community development blocks of Saharsa district have been selected as sampling sites and from each block two samples either from well or tube well, on the basis of availability of functioning well or tubewell have been collected for analysis. Thus all together twenty samples were collected for pre-monsoon (May-June) season and twenty samples were collected for post-monsoon (October-November) season in the year 20222 and analyzed. The analytical results of the elemental lead in the groundwater for pre and post monsoon seasons have been tabulated in Table-1. The Lead (Pb) concentration was found to be between 0.022 ppm to 0.243 ppm and 0.022 ppm to 0.228 ppm for the pre- and post-monsoon seasons respectively. The average value was between 0.022ppm to 0.232 ppm. The maximum allowable, limit as per WHO is 0.05 ppm and as per USPH the acceptable value is 0.100 ppm. Some of the values are within the limit and some of the values are higher than the prescribed limits.