The township of Nova Olinda, south of Ceará, is supplied with waters from four deep wells exploiting a confined sandstone aquifer. Calcite and gypsum rock outcrop and are being exploited commercially in the watershed where three of the wells are located. Since 2006, public supply pipelines are damaged due to a sheet-like precipitation causing frequent obstruction of the pipes. In this investigation we used chemical analyses, physical chemistry, X-ray analyses and determination of the calcite saturation index - CSI for studying possible causes for the deposits identified, basically, as calcite. Calcium concentrations and CSIs indicate that the water disinfection process adopted increases the tendency of calcite precipitation due to calcium contained in the chemicals used.
Water quality; calcite saturation index; calcite precipitation
