Heavy Metal Contamination of Groundwater: An Effect of Dump Site Leachate Percolation, Case Study; Selected Dump Sites of Osubi, Western Niger-Delta

The status of the quality of groundwater in Osubi area of Delta State is reviewed in this paper. For this study 10 stations (wells) around abattoir dumpsite in Osubi, Delta state were chosen to collect and assess copper, lead, manganese, cadmium and iron contamination in groundwater using methods as pollution load index (PLI) and geo-accumulation index (I-geo). Cadmium and lead had the lowest concentration as they were not detected, whereas iron had the highest concentration ranging from not detected to 45.45mg/kg with 13.48492 as average, manganese ranging from 0.03 to 0.77 with 0.192 s average and copper with 0.2 in only well 6. Methods as enrichment factor, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, one-way Anova, and cluster analysis was used to evaluate the relationships between the growing heavy metal concentration. Geo-accumulation index indicated that well 4, 5 and 6 were the most polluted with respect to manganese with values ranging from - 1.90689 at the least to 2.35989 at the most, iron with values ranging from -7.67243 at the least to 2.155711 at the most and copper, with value 5.058894 at the most. Enrichment factor results indicated that cupper in well 6 was the most enriched relative to iron with value as high as110.7492. The one-way Anova and cluster dedrogram indicated that most of the heavy were closely related in concentration and growth as only two clusters were represented. All methods used indicated that the study unpolluted to moderately polluted and polluted was anthropogenic and not geogenic.