Attenuation of Roadway-Derived Heavy Metals by Wood Chips
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 9
Abstract
Wood chips were evaluated for their ability to attenuate heavy metals in roadway runoff. Column experiments with controlled synthetic runoff composition and flow rate were used to assess effects of flow rate (intercepted sheetflow from a 3-m wide roadway section), runoff salt concentration, wood exposure to alternating wetting and drying cycles, wood aging, competition among dissolved heavy metals, and removal of particle-associated heavy metals. Overall, wood chips damped the “pulse” of copper in the synthetic runoff such that the effluent was characterized by lower concentrations (3–25% of input) over longer periods of time, but with little retention of the total copper mass. The most effective treatment was wood chips aged up to 9 months. Increased aging and chip water content reduced effluent concentrations, relative to no treatment. Flow rate had no effect on effluent concentrations. The presence of salt or dissolved lead in the runoff caused greater copper effluent concentrations than the no treatment case. Removal of suspended particles (and associated contaminants) was greater than 85% with an estimated capacity of . Field evaluation with concentrated flow to a gutter containing a wood chip treatment showed little effect on total or dissolved copper and zinc runoff concentrations and indicated that wood chips may be a source of contaminants in subsequent storm events. Applications of wood chips to treat roadway runoff would not provide a significant decrease in total maximum daily load contributions (e.g., kg/d); however, there may be some scenarios for which wood chip treatments to decrease peak storm water concentrations of dissolved heavy metals in sheetflow runoff is desirable.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this research was provided by the New England Transportation Consortium. We thank Mr. Scott Zinke, UCONN CAP Lab, for technical assistance during the field evaluation and the Project 03-1 Technical Advisory Committee for relevant comments throughout the study. Administrative support was provided by the Connecticut Transportation Institute. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
References
Andral, M. C., Roger, S., Montrejaud-Vignoles, M., and Herremans, L. (1999). “Particle size distribution and hydronamic characteristics of solid matter carried by runoff from motorways.” Water Environ. Res., 71, 398–407.
Barrett, M. E., Irish, L. B., Jr., Malina, J. F., Jr., and Charbeneau, R. J. (1998). “Characterization of highway runoff in Austin, Texas, area.” J. Environ. Eng., 124, 131–137.
Boving, T. B. (2002). “Chemical retention capacity of a newly constructed roadway runoff detention pond system.” Rep. Prepared for Univ. of Rhode Island Transportation Center, Univ. of Rhode Island Transportation Center, Kingston, R.I.
Brusseau, M. L. (1995). “The effect of nonlinear sorption on transformation of contaminants during transport in porous media.” J. Contam. Hydrol., 17, 277–291.
Brusseau, M. L., Jessup, R. E., and Rao, P. S. C. (1991). “Nonequilibrium sorption of organic chemicals: Elucidation of rate-limiting processes.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 25, 134–142.
Bryant, P. S., Peterson, J. N., Lee, J. M., and Brouns, T. M. (1992). “Sorption of heavy metals by untreated red fir sawdust.” Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol., 34–35, 777–788.
Calace, N., Nardi, E., Petronio, B. M., Pietroletti, M., and Tosti, G. (2003). “Metal ion removal from water by sorption on paper mill sludge.” Chemosphere, 51, 797–803.
Choe, J. S., Bang, K. W., and Lee, J. H. (2002). “Characterization of surface runoff in urban areas.” Water Sci. Technol., 45, 249–254.
Colandini, V., Legret, M., Brosseaud, Y., and Balades, J. -D. (1995). “Metallic pollution in clogging materials of urban porous pavements.” Water Sci. Technol., 32, 57–62.
Deletic, A. (1998). “The first flush load of urban surface runoff.” Water Res., 32, 2462–2470.
Domenico, P. A., and Schwartz, F. W. (1990). Physical and chemical hydrogeology, Wiley, New York.
Drapper, D., Tomlinson, R., and Williams, P. (2000). “Pollutant concentrations in road runoff: Southeast Queensland case study.” J. Environ. Eng., 126, 313–320.
Driscoll, E., Shelley, P. E., and Strecker, E. W. (1990). Pollutant loadings and impacts from highway storm water runoff.” Rep. Prepared for Federal Highway Administration, FHWA-RD-88-006, FHwA, Washington, D.C.
EPA. (1995). Controlling nonpoint source runoff pollution from roads, highways, and bridges.” Rep. Prepared for Office of Water, EPA-841-95-008a, EPA, Washington, D.C.
EPA. (2000). “Storm water Phase II final rule, small MS4 storm water program overview, 2000.” Rep. No. EPA 833-F-00-002, EPA, Washington D.C.
FHwA. (1999). “Is highway runoff a serious problem?” Rep. Prepared for Office of Infrastructure R&D, Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, McLean, Va.
Fiest, W. C., and Hon, D. N.-S. (1984). “Chemistry of solid wood.” Chemistry of weathering and protection, Chap. 11, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 401–451.
Granto, G. E., and Smith, K. P. (1999). “Estimating concentrations of road-salt constituents in highway-runoff from measurements of specific conductance.” Rep. Prepared for Water Resource Division, 99-4077, USGS, Northboro, Mass.
Han, J. S., Miyashita, E. S., Lin, Y. -Y., and Roa, A. (1999). “Storm water filtration of a municipal detention pond.” Kenaf properties, processing, and products, Mississippi State Univ., Miss., 471–485.
Juneson, C., Ward, O. P., and Singh, A. (2001). “Microbial treatment of a styrene-contaminated air stream in a biofilter with high elimination capacities.” J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 26, 196–202.
MacKay, A. A., and Gschwend, P. M. (2000). “Sorption of monoaromatic hydrocarbons to wood.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 34, 839–845.
Marin, J., and Ayele, J. (2002). “Removal of some heavy metal cations from aqueous solutions by spruce sawdust. I: Study of the binding mechanisms through batch experiments.” Environ. Technol., 23, 1157–1171.
Martens, W., Martinec, M., Zapirain, R., Stark, M., Hartung, E., and Palmgren, U. (2001). “Reduction potential of microbial, odour and ammonia emissions from a pig facility by biofilters.” Int. J. Hyg. Environ. Health, 203, 335–345.
Morel, F. M. M., and Hering, J. G. (1993). Principles and applications of aquatic chemistry, Wiley, New York.
Ogden, F. L. (1998). “Intensity-frequency analysis of 15-minute precipitation records in Connecticut.” Rep. Prepared for CT Institute of Water Resources, Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn.
Roger, S., Montrejaud-Vignoles, M., Andral, M. C., Herremans, L., and Fortune, J. P. (1998). “Mineral, physical, and chemical analysis of solid matter carried by motorway runoff water.” Water Res., 32, 1119–1125.
Roseen, R. M., Ballestero, T. P., Houle, J. J., Avelleneda, P., Widley, R., and Briggs, J. (2006). “Manufactured treatment strategies for parking lot runoff.” Transp. Res. Rec., 1984, 135–147.
Sansalone, J. J., and Buchberger, S. G. (1995). “An infiltration device as a best management practice for immobilizing heavy metals in urban highway runoff.” Water Sci. Technol., 32, 119–125.
Sansalone, J. J., and Buchberger, S. G. (1997a). “Partitioning and first flush of metals in urban roadway storm water.” J. Environ. Eng., 123, 134–143.
Sansalone, J. J., and Buchberger, S. G. (1997b). “Characterization of solid and metal element distributions in urban highway storm water.” Water Sci. Technol., 36, 155–160.
Shinya, M., Tsuchinaga, T., Kitano, M., and Ishikawa, M. (2000). “Characterization of heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urban highway runoff.” Water Sci. Technol., 42, 201–208.
Shukla, A., Zhang, Y., Dubey, P., Margrave, J. L., and Shukla, S. S. (2002). “The role of sawdust in the removal of unwanted materials from water.” J. Hazard. Mater., 95, 137–152.
Stamm, A. J. (1964). Wood and cellulose science, The Ronald Press, New York.
Stumm, W., and Morgan, J. J. (1996). Aquatic chemistry, 3rd Ed., Wiley, New York.
U.S. Code, Title 33, Chapter 26, Subchapter III, Section 1313. (2008). “Water quality standards and implementation plans.” ⟨http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/33/1313.html⟩ (Mar. 23, 2008).
Villaescusa, I., Martinex, M., and Miralles, N. (2000). “Heavy metal uptake from aqueous solution by cork and yohimbe bark wastes.” J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol., 75, 812–816.
Yao, K. -M., Habibian, M. T., and O'Melia, C. R. (1971). “Water and waste water filtration: Concepts and applications.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 5, 1105–1112.
Yu, Q. Y., Kandegedara, A., Xu, Y. P., and Rorabacher, D. B. (1997). “Avoiding interferences from Good’s buffers: A contiguous series of noncomplexing tertiary amine buffers covering the entire pH range of pH 3–11.” Anal. Biochem., 253, 50–56.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 9 • September 2009
Pages: 747 - 757
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 24, 2008
Accepted: Dec 11, 2008
Published online: Aug 14, 2009
Published in print: Sep 2009
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.