[Investigations on the mercury pollutions of drinking water in the urban and rural regions of Styria (Austria) (author's transl)].

The paper reports on the inspection of more than 1000 drinking water supply plants with the purpose of determining the content of mercury. The investigations were carried out during the years from 1974 to 1977, and were intended to clarify whether in Styria (Austria), a partly industrialised and partly agricultural area, the ground water is polluted by mercury resulting from the use of mercury-containing plant preservation chemicals, seed dressings and industrial chemicals. The standard of assessment was taken from the German Drinking Water Regulation of 1975 which establishes a max. permissible mercury content of 4 ppb Hg for drinking water. In 70 per cent of the samples no mercury was detected. Of the remaining 30 per cent of the samples, about 90 per cent proved to have mercury below 1 ppb. The remaining water samples contained more than 4 ppb Hg and these values were attributable to geological or civilisatory causes. In two instances it was impossible to determine the origin of the mercury.