Assessing the pollution load of a winery

How can you be sure of the actual pollution level of a winery? It's a tricky question, because the stakes are high (design or evolution of a depollution site) and the causes of error are numerous.

Water meters in cellars are sometimes in poor working order. In addition, leaks can occur in the soil downstream. Finally, boreholes are sometimes used without water metering.

Occasional malfunctions in the winery's operations and in wastewater collection disrupt the interpretation of water consumption and effluent analysis.

Under normal conditions, the cyclical and fluctuating activity of winemaking (and consequently of washing) results in fluctuating quantities of water used for washing, as well as in dilution of discharges. What day should I choose to define the pollution load of a winery?

These major uncertainties in water metering and pollutant load analyses pose a problem for the sizing of pollution control facilities, both when setting up a pollution control unit and when adapting such a unit to changes in the winery (changes in the production chain, equipment, cleaning methods, etc.).

A priori, certain reference values should be useful for validating field measurements: according to a study carried out by Racault in 1993, the last few weeks of the harvest represent the pollution peak, and around 60% of the water volume is consumed in the 3 months following the start of the harvest.

Other methods should help to decide on the validation of pollution load measurements. For example, a detailed analysis of a cellar's activities using a logbook can be used to determine daily pollution levels, based on the specific loads of individual operations.

Research has been initiated by Cemagref with the support of the Rhône-Méditerranée-Corse water agency (RMC, France) to develop a method for diagnosing pollutant loads.