Effects of Lime Amendment on the pH of Engineered Soil Mix for the Purposes of Bioretention
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 134, Issue 5
Abstract
Storm-water management strategies increasingly focus on the implementation of infiltration-based best management practices (BMPs) such as swales, bioretention basins, and rain gardens. The surface vegetation and underlying soil in these BMPs remove a variety of pollutants including heavy metals and nutrients from urban storm-water runoff. The successful attenuation of these storm-water stressors is largely influenced by the physical and chemical properties of the soils used in these systems. Controlled-condition research is being conducted using pilot-scale swales and rain gardens at U.S. EPA’s Urban Watershed Research Facility in Edison, N.J. to evaluate their performance and collect data that would help in understanding the engineering design. The first phase of this research was to evaluate and select the most appropriate soil media for use in infiltration-based BMPs for the efficient removal of heavy metals and nutrients. The objective of this laboratory incubation study was to determine how the acidic pH of an engineered infield soil media could be improved to the target pH range suitable for heavy metals adsorption using dolomitic limestone amendments . Lime additions to the acidic infield mix resulted in neutral or slightly basic soil conditions after only of incubation. The soil response to various lime additions appeared to stabilize after more than of incubation. These results could potentially be applied to bioretention facilities to improve the sorption characteristics of the soil media.
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Acknowledgments
This research at the Urban Watershed Management Branch (UWMB) U.S. EPA, Edison, N.J., was supported by Oak Ridge Institute for Science Education (ORISE), and Office of Research and Development, U.S. EPA. Any opinions expressed in this technical note are those of the writers and do not, necessarily, reflect the official positions and policies of the U.S. EPA. Any mention of products or trade names does not constitute recommendation for use by the U.S. EPA.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 134 • Issue 5 • October 2008
Pages: 675 - 679
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Jul 5, 2007
Accepted: Oct 29, 2007
Published online: Oct 1, 2008
Published in print: Oct 2008
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