Long-term impact of wastewater effluent discharge on groundwater: Identification of contaminant plume by geochemical, isotopic, and organic tracers' approach.

Infiltration of effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) into groundwater can be a source of Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs), such as pharmaceutical compounds, that are not fully removed during the treatment processes. A multi-tracer approach, based on hydrogeochemical, isotopic, and organic tracers, is applied in the Vistrenque Aquifer (Gard, France) to assess the dispersion of such unintentional plumes and its potential implication on groundwater quality for CECs in a small catchment area. In this area, a point source of WWTP effluent causes contaminant infiltration and unintentional transfer to the aquifer.

Chloride accumulation in aboveground biomass of three macrophytes (Phragmites australis, Juncus maritimus, and Typha latifolia) depending on their growth stages and salinity exposure: application for Cl removal and phytodesalinization.

Anthropogenic activities can be the source of saline solid wastes that need to be treated to reduce their salt load to meet the purposes of reuse, valorization or storage. In this context, chloride remediation can be achieved using high-salt accumulating plants. However, there is very limited information on the comparative potential of different species in the same environment, and only scarce data concerning their efficiency as a function of growth stage.

Water stable isotopes and volumetric discharge rates to monitor the Rhône water's seasonal origin.

Along the 98 800 km Rhône catchment area, 3 million people depend on the river resource and its sustainability. Flow rate monitoring of the French rivers showed the importance of the Swiss part of the Rhône (measured at station 1), the Isere (station 2) and the Durance rivers (station 3) contribution into the Rhône downstream (station 4) during summer when other recharges are decreasing. While their contribution is only of 10-30 % during most of the year, those rivers could contribute to more than 60 % of the Rhône flow rate during the driest period.

Sr isotope discrimination of multi species aquaculture productions at a worldwide scale and contribution of the water reservoir in Sr plant input.

Aquatic plants commonly used in landscaping or as ornaments are subject to a growing worldwide market that is source of trade between countries which can induce the transfer of unwanted invasive alien plant species. To protect national biodiversity and economy, authorities promote the use of local markets without however providing the method to do so. This study deals with the feasibility of using Sr stable isotopes for discriminating the origin of aquatic plants at a worldwide scale.

Spatial distribution of triazine residues in a shallow alluvial aquifer linked to groundwater residence time.

At present, some triazine herbicides occurrence in European groundwater, 13 years after their use ban in the European Union, remains of great concern and raises the question of their persistence in groundwater systems due to several factors such as storage and remobilization from soil and unsaturated zone, limited or absence of degradation, sorption in saturated zones, or to continuing illegal applications. In order to address this problem and to determine triazine distribution in the saturated zone, their occurrence is investigated in the light of the aquifer hydrodynamic on the basis of a geochemical approach using groundwater dating tracers (H/He). In this study, atrazine, simazine, terbuthylazine, deethylatrazine, deisopropylatrazine, and deethylterbuthylazine are measured in 66 samples collected between 2011 and 2013 from 21 sampling points, on the Vistrenque shallow alluvial aquifer (southern France), covered by a major agricultural land use.

Tracking natural and anthropogenic origins of dissolved arsenic during surface and groundwater interaction in a post-closure mining context: Isotopic constraints.

Arsenic contamination of stream waters and groundwater is a real issue in Au-As mine environments. At the Salsigne Au-As mine, southern France, arsenic contamination persists after closure and remediation of the site. In this study, natural and anthropogenic arsenic inputs in surface water and groundwater are identified based on (87)Sr/(86)Sr, and δ(18)O and δ(2)H isotopic composition of water.

Methodological development for 87Sr/86Sr measurement in olive oil and preliminary discussion of its use for geographical traceability of PDO Nîmes (France).

The lack of a geographical identification protocol for olive oils can lead to fraud and health risks. As some works call for Sr isotopes for the geographical identification of agri-food products, this study focus on the feasibility of extracting Sr from olive oils for isotopic measurements by TIMS. In fact, existing protocols for purification of Sr are unsuitable for lipid matrix.

[Tumors of the mediastinal nerves. Diagnosis and possibilities of conservative surgery. Apropos of 2 cases].

Two new cases of tumour of nerves running in the mediastinum are reported; one was a schwannoma of the right phrenic nerve, the other a schwannoma of the vagus nerve. In both cases the diagnosis was suspected on the basis of computed tomography scans. Treatment consisted of nerve-sparing tumour enucleation.

[Aspergillosis and radiation-induced pneumonia. What relationship? Apropos of 2 cases].

The authors report the cases of 2 patients who underwent lobectomy followed by irradiation for lung cancer and subsequently developed an aspergillus-infected cavity in the irradiated lung parenchyma. It is far from certain that aspergillosis must always develop in a pre-existing cavity. In cases where it developed on post-radiotherapy lung lesions, our 2 patients and a review of the literature encline us to believe that the fungus itself is responsible for the formation of cavities in lesions of radiation pneumonia.

[False pulmonary metastases. Apropos of 8 cases].

The authors report the cases of 8 patients who had been, or were being, treated for pharyngo-laryngeal carcinoma (n = 7) or cancer of the bladder (n = 1). Because of the finding of one or several peripheral pulmonary opacities, these patients underwent exploratory thoracotomy which showed that these opacities corresponded to benign lesions instead of metastases of these cancers. This leads to a reappraisal of the diagnostic approach of pulmonary opacities in patients with known cancer, since benign lesions unrelated to the malignancy cannot be excluded.

[Mycobacterium xenopi infection in emphysematous bulla. Apropos of 4 cases operated on].

The authors presented their observations of four patients who were operated on for a supra-infection of emphysematous bullae by Mycobacterium xenopi. In two cases the patients were operated on without a diagnosis and excision of the right upper lobe assured their cure. The other patient underwent a decortication and ultimately relapsed.

[Pseudo-tumoral round atelectasis without known pleural history (apropos of 2 cases)].

The authors recall two cases of round atelectasis without any known pleural past-record. The first showed, on successive X rays, an increase in size of the image. In the second case a pleural effusion occurred after the discovery of a round opacity.