Pervious Pavement System Evaluation

Pervious pavement is a low impact development stormwater control. The Urban Watershed Management Branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Edison, NJ, is evaluating concrete pavers as a popular implementation. The pollutant removal of a bench-scale permeable interlocking concrete paver system was evaluated using urban stormwater runoff from a 9 3/4-acre drainage area. Stormwater was delivered to the pavement system twice daily to accelerate aging of the system, while monitoring clogging and long-term pollutant removal. The role of microbial communities within the pervious pavement system in pollutant removal is also being examined. It is important to evaluate stormwater quality after filtration through pervious pavement systems to see if the exfiltrate has improved sufficiently for release to surface or ground waters. The bench-scale phase of this study examined materials and system hydraulics to optimize for the full-scale experiment. The project evaluated system performance with the presence of a geotextile between gravel layers using both woven and nonwoven fabrics along with control systems with no geotextile.