Improperly designed evaporation sprayers, when used in conjunction with a pond, can produce small droplets that contain toxic particles that are too light to fall into the pond and might potentially float, polluting the air for great distances around any specific site. These, however, are often not used in standard evaporation pond applications, and newer sprayers have also been modified to produce larger droplets that function as intended and fall onto a pond surface as planned.
Some disturbing western states’ studies, however, have raised concerns about possible air contamination from privately-operated and commercial water surface disposal facilities that use evaporation ponds, and have garnered the attention of regulators. These studies point to localized VOC emissions as contributing to ozone formation at ground level. Further study is warranted to either confirm or dispel these findings.
