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Radiological and chemical toxicity risks of uranium in groundwater based-drinking at Immigration Headquarters Gosa and Federal Housing Lugbe area of Abuja, North Central Nigeria

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Abstract

Inadequate public water supply by the Water Board in Abuja has forced the public to source for groundwater as the only alternative for consumption without consideration for radiological risk. The radiological risk for cancer mortality of uranium in Immigration Headquarters Gosa and Federal-Housing Lugbe groundwater water samples were measured and compared with Water Board and hand-dug well water samples from the same area using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The highest radiological risks for cancer mortality and morbidity were found to be low, with highest values of 1.24 × 10−7 and 1.64 × 10−7 obtained from Federal-Housing Lugbe borehole. The chemical toxicity risk of 238U in drinking water over life time consumption has a mean value of 4.0 × 10−4 μg kg−1 day−1 with highest value of 6.0 × 10−3 μg kg−1 day−1 obtained from Federal-Housing Lugbe. Significantly, this study inferred that the 238U concentrations reported in groundwater based-drinking originated from sheared zone of magmatic metamorphosed basaltic dyke intrusion. Due to the low risk values found in the water samples when compared with the International Reference Standard, radiological and chemical toxicity risks values may not pose any health risk to the public that rely on groundwater in the area.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Management of Covenant University for the financial assistance to execute this research. More thanks to the ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) for their funding through Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Research Grant Scheme Project number: Q.J130000.2526.03H65. Thanks to Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja for providing equipment for water analysis. The authors wish to thank SYB Sinyoung Borehole Limited for providing the Rig and Compressor used in drilling the boreholes and Maxico Hydrosolution consult for providing the Campus Ohmega tetrameter for geosurvey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, College of Science and Technology, Covenant University, P.M.B. 1023, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria

    Omeje Maxwell, Olusegun Adewoyin & E. S. Joel

  2. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor, Malaysia

    Omeje Maxwell & Husin Wagiran

  3. Department of Economics and Development Studies, College of Business and Social Sciences, Covenant University, P.M.B. 1023, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria

    Ngozi Adeleye

  4. Faculty of Science, Technology and Human Development, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia

    Zaidi Embong

  5. Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, Covenant University, P.M.B. 1023, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria

    I. T. Tenebe

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  1. Omeje Maxwell
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  2. Husin Wagiran
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  3. Olusegun Adewoyin
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  4. E. S. Joel
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Correspondence to Omeje Maxwell.

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Maxwell, O., Wagiran, H., Adewoyin, O. et al. Radiological and chemical toxicity risks of uranium in groundwater based-drinking at Immigration Headquarters Gosa and Federal Housing Lugbe area of Abuja, North Central Nigeria. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 311, 1185–1191 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-016-4997-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-016-4997-9

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