Physicochemical Assessment of Ground Water Quality from Borehole and Hand Dug Wells around Obajana Community, Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria

The groundwater qualities of Obajana in Kogi State were determined. The study consisted of the determination of some heavy metals and physicochemical properties of drinking water samples. The samples were analyzed for the following parameters iron, copper, manganese, zinc, lead,using AAS Varian AA240FS. Nitrates, sulphate, phosphate, colour, dissolved solids, electrical conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), temperature, turbidity, total hardness and total alkalinity using standard method. The data showed the variation of the investigated parameters in samples as follows: temperature 26-30oC,  pH 5.53-7.89, electrical conductivity (EC) 6.210-339.670 μS/cm, total hardness 50.00- 424.20 mg/l, alkalinity 1.10-145.67mg/l, turbidity 0.00-34 FTU, colour 5-15TCU, phosphate 0.02-0.760 mg/l, nitrate 10.24-48.20mg/l, sulphate  24.70-222.13mg/l, dissolved oxygen 0.2-1.8 mg/l,  BOD 0.2-1.0mg/l, COD 1.1-3.2mg/l, Cu 0.00.1-0.10mg/l , Fe 0.01-0.060mg/l, Zn 0.029-5.046mg/l, Mn  0.0-0.44mg/l and Pb 0.0348-1.046mg/l. The concentrations of some of the investigated parameters in the drinking water samples from the research region were above the permissible limits of the World Health Organization standard for drinking water quality guidelines. lead was found to exceed 0.01mg/l which is the WHO maximum limit, also zinc and manganese were found to exceed the WHO maximum limit of 3.0mg/l and 0.1mg/l