Water Treatment Residual as a Bioretention Amendment for Phosphorus. I: Evaluation Studies
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Abstract
Urban stormwater runoff has been implicated as a major source of excess nutrients to surface waters, contributing to the development of eutrophic conditions. Bioretention, a promising technology for urban stormwater pollution treatment, was investigated to determine whether an aluminum-based water treatment residual (WTR) amended bioretention soil media (BSM) could adsorb sufficient at low concentrations (), extrapolated for a 20-year facility lifetime. Batch and minicolumn studies were employed to determine both an optimal BSM mixture and media performance. Media tests demonstrated adsorption proportional to WTR addition. Additional amendments such as quartz sand and hardwood bark mulch produced further significant variations in adsorptive behavior. WTR-amended media showed excellent removal, meeting the developed benchmark for adsorptive behavior. Predominantly, media met minimal adsorption requirements when it contained at least 4 to 5% WTR by mass (air dried). The use of an oxalate-extractable aluminum-, iron-, and phosphorus-based metric to predict media adsorption capacity, the oxalate ratio, is proposed. A media oxalate ratio of 20–40 is expected to meet the adsorption requirement.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Maryland State Highway Administration for their financial support, under the guidance of Karuna Pujara, Karen Coffman, and Christie Minami. Also, thanks is owed to the Rockville Drinking Water Treatment Plant for their donation of the WTR and to the College Park Department of Public Works for supplying leaf and yard waste Smartleaf© compost.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 138 • Issue 3 • March 2012
Pages: 318 - 327
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 3, 2010
Accepted: Apr 15, 2011
Published online: Apr 18, 2011
Published in print: Mar 1, 2012
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