Natural lagooning of landfill leachate
The Etueffont municipal landfill waste (Northeast of Belfort, France) possesses a mode of exploitation by grinding wastes without compaction, to facilitate the aerobic degradation. This technique leads to a leachate production. The leachate was treated by natural lagoons consisting of 4 decantation basins then released in the brook (of Mont Bonnet). Efficiency of the epuration was estimated by calculation the net budget of elements (=Input-Output). The results showed that lagoons eliminated the quasi-totality of organic matters (about 80% of BOD) and dissolved substances (about 50 to 90%). Nevertheless, a decrease of epuration efficiency that has been observed in winter of all elements (temperature, electric conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, redox potential, chloride, iron, manganese, nickel, zink, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, ammonia, BOD, COD), was due to the decrease of pH (pH=4,5). However, in the begining of summer only Cu2+ and Fe2+ decreased. The collapse of BOD removel (- 8% observed in September 1998) was linked to the excedentary stock of organic matter products in the basins during the summer. The analysis of the monthly evolution of the efficiency epuration of NH4+, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) indicate similary features. The net budget fluctuates between 50% in winter and 70% in summer. The weak values are noted in January 1999 (19% for NH4+ , 13% for TN and 14% for TP). This work showed that the natural lagooning is weakly efficient for this kind of landfill leachates.