Oil and Grease Measurement in Highway Runoff—Sampling Time and Event Mean Concentrations
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 132, Issue 3
Abstract
An event mean concentration (EMC), usually collected with an automatic, flow-weighted composite sampler, is often used to characterize stormwater pollutants. Automatic samplers are not recommended for collecting oil and grease (O&G) samples due to possible biases associated with interactions with tubing and pumps. To measure the EMC without sampler interferences, a series of grab samples (often over ten samples) must be collected along with the flow measurement to compute the EMC. This paper examines 22 O&G pollutographs from small, impervious highway sites, to determine when a single O&G grab sample most closely approximates a flow-weighted composite sample. Samples collected within the first hour of a storm event overestimated the O&G EMC by or more, while samples collected toward the end of the event underestimated the EMC. The best time to collect a single grab sample ranged from 1 to 6 h after the beginning of runoff, and was related to site or storm-specific factors. Results obtained from this study also showed that strong correlations exist between O&G and other organic constituents, such as chemical oxygen demand (COD) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Correlations also exist between O&G EMC, antecedent dry days, and total rainfall. Depending upon site and regulatory specific factors, using COD or DOC EMCs in lieu O&G samples may be a better strategy.
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Acknowledgments
The writers acknowledge with great appreciation the Division of Environmental Analysis, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) for their support of this research project. They also wish to thank J.-H. Kang, L.-H. Kim, S. Ha, M. Ma, Y.-X. Li, and D. Rosso, of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles for their assistance with sampling and data analysis.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 132 • Issue 3 • March 2006
Pages: 415 - 422
Copyright
© ASCE.
History
Received: Feb 25, 2004
Accepted: Aug 10, 2005
Published online: Mar 1, 2006
Published in print: Mar 2006
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