Pharmaceutical waste disposal in a disused open quarry: assessment of its effects on soil and groundwater.

Groundwater pollution can be a serious problem for human health, especially if the water is used for drinking purposes. The pollution depends on human activities (agricultural and industrial) which are often uncontrolled on natural resources. In the present study we report some results about a preliminary investigation on a disused open quarry that was used for ten years for waste disposal by a pharmaceutical company producing antibiotics (in particular erythromycin) using fermentative processes and subsequent chemical transformations. It is located close to the San Pancrazio Salentino town, in the south of Apulia Region (Italy). The study was performed in order to assess an "eco-diagnosis" of the disused quarry. In particular, here we report the main results regarding the analyses of microbial communities of water samples collected both from the internal (the polluted site) and external quarry wells (control site) in order to compare the different sites. The structure and functioning of the bacterial community was studied by evaluating the bacterial abundance (by DAPI counts), the cell viability (Live/Dead method) and the Microbial Community Composition by Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH). The overall results showed that the groundwater quality state was quite low on the basis of the abundance, viability and diversity values.