Hygienic importance of increased barium content in some fresh waters

In surface waters of the mining and processing areas of uranium ore there is an increased content of free and bound barium ions due to the use of barium salts for the treatment of waste and mine waters containing radium. In model experiments with the algae Ankistrodesmus falcatus, Chlorella kessleri and Scenedesmus obliquus, we studied the effect of Ba2+ on the accumulation of 226Ra. It was found that the accumulation of radium by algae is negatively influenced with barium concentrations higher than 1 mg.l-1. The accumulation of barium of organisms of primary production was studied using 133BaCl2. At a barium content in the medium of 4.0, 0.46 and 0.04 mu. l-1, the algae accumulated 30-60% of the added amount of barium during an exposure of 15 days. Biochemical analyses showed that barium is bound to the cellular membrane and to other components of the algal cell that cannot be extracted with water or alcohol.