Question

Last autumn our office received complaints of a large fish kill along the Ohio River, indicating that someone had discharged highly toxic material into the river. Our water monitoring stations at Cincinnati and Portsmouth, Ohio (119 miles apart) report that a large slug of phenol is moving down the river and we strongly suspect that this is the cause of the pollution. The slug took 9 hours to pass the Portsmouth monitoring station, and its concentration peaked at 8:00 A.M. Monday. About 24 hours later the slug peaked at Cincinnati, taking 12 hours to pass this monitoring station. Phenol is used at a number of locations on the Ohio River, and their distance upriver from Cincinnati are as follows:_______.Ashland, KY-150 miles upstream Marietta, OH-303Huntington, WV-168 Wheeling, WV-385Pomeroy, OH-222 Steubenville, OH-425Parkersburg, WV-290 Pittsburgh, PA-500What can you say about the probable pollution source?

Answer 1

Step-by-step explanation:

Base on the scenario been described in the question, this solution, I have assumed that the river has the exact flow all through and therefore, dispersion characteristics will is also the same

This implies that the river doesn't separate or any other water body does not mixed with Ohio river

For us to begin we can assume that all phenol was injected at a time at upstream from Cincinnati.

Please check the image below