Environmental Assessment of Petroleum Hydrocarbons Contaminating Temsah Lake, Suez Canal, Egypt

Nour Sh. El-Gendy* and Yasser M. Moustafa

Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute, Nasr City, Cairo (Egypt)

Eleven surface water, eight surface sediment and four fish samples were collected from different sites all over Temsah Lake (Ismailia, Egypt). The contaminating hydrocarbons were extracted from each sample to be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively using standard methods. Results obtained indicate that generally all sites are contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons which were affected by weathering to different degrees as detected by gas chromatographic (GC) analysis indicating that the area is subjected to several successive spills. The amounts of pollutants are some what alarmingly high; the total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) content in water samples reaching 103mg/l, in sediment samples reaching 635mg/kg and in fish samples reaching 139mg/kg. The main components of such pollutants are polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) compounds as detected by GC and UV/Vis/NIR spectrophotometric techniques. The presence of such compounds is very harmful to marine life and is of great danger to human health. More efforts and rules are needed in order to govern, prevent or even minimize the sources of petroleum hydrocarbons.

Petroleum; pollution; water; sediments; fish; gas chromatographic analysis; ultraviolet spectroscopic analysis; Temsah Lake