Case Study of Steady Oxygen Concentration Gradients in a Groundwater Plume from a Highway Infiltration Basin
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 11
Abstract
We measure and model the steady transport of specific conductivity and dissolved oxygen through a groundwater plume from a highway infiltration basin in southeastern Massachusetts. Specific conductivity is treated as a conservative surrogate for runoff contamination, and the data calibrate a 0.27-m vertical dispersivity of the aquifer and the bottom streamline elevation of the plume, which falls to an 8-m depth below the water table. The dissolved oxygen degrades as a first order reactant in the plume to levels below 1 mg/L, with a decay constant of . The latter may be attributed in part to the historical use of an alternative de-icing agent calcium magnesium acetate on the highway, since acetate is a readily biodegradable substrate for microorganisms. The calibrated kinetics suggest that plume microbes and geochemistry degrade oxygen over two orders of magnitude faster than their ambient groundwater counterparts, which impose a linear decrease of dissolved oxygen concentration below the plume. Simulations suggest that the anoxic groundwater plume extends 1,600 m downgradient of the infiltration basin, a distance that will shorten by an order of magnitude if salt is used exclusively to de-ice the highway.
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Acknowledgments
The Massachusetts Highway Department funded this research under Interagency Service Agreement UNSPECIFIED38721. The views, opinions, and findings contained in this paper are the Authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official view or policies of MassHighway. This paper does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 11 • November 2009
Pages: 1237 - 1243
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: May 8, 2008
Accepted: Feb 13, 2009
Published online: Feb 26, 2009
Published in print: Nov 2009
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