Purpose:
The purpose of this project is to demonstrate and validate that constructed wetlands are an efficient, cost-effective technology for the removal of aircraft deicing fluid (ADF) runoff. The demonstration includes design, construction, and performance monitoring of a full-scale treatment wetland at an active Department of Defense (DoD) installation. Project performers will facilitate technology transfer to end-users by producing guidance for the use of wetlands to treat ADF runoff, documenting and providing solutions for implementation barriers and identifying future DoD implementations.
Description:
The Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NFESC), in conjunction with the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence (AFCEE), is performing a demonstration of ADF runoff treatment using constructed wetlands at Westover Air Reserve Base in Massachusetts. Expertise on the behavior, toxicity, and biological degradation of ADF runoff is provided by the University of Colorado at Boulder and Western Washington University. Treatment wetlands are a rapidly growing technology for the removal of contaminants from wastewater, groundwater, surficial water, and other high water-content waste streams. Wetlands use a multitude of naturally occurring processes or removal mechanisms to attenuate contaminants. For example, organic contaminants sorbed to particles may settle out of the waste stream and accumulate in surface flow wetland sediments or be retained within the wetland bed media of subsurface flow systems. Once entrained in the wetland environment, vigorous microbial activity will degrade the contaminant.
Benefits:
This demonstration will provide the DoD with a low-cost alternative for sustainable treatment of ADF runoff. The nature of the technology is passive and, at most, requires very little operation and management effort. Base employees, air operations personnel, and air wing crews will benefit from this “hands-off” operation when compared to more active and resource-intensive technologies currently available off-the-shelf.
(Project Completed - 2004)
Contact:
Jeff Karrh, P.I.
NFESC, ESC411
1100 23rd Avenue
Port Hueneme, CA 93043-4370
Telephone: (850) 982-1272
Fax: (805) 982-4304
E-mail: karrhjd@nfesc.navy.mil
Barbara Nelson
NFESC, ESC411
1100 23rd Avenue
Port Hueneme, CA 93043-4370
Telephone: (850) 982-1272
Fax: (805) 982-4304
E-mail: nelsonbn@nfesc.navy.mil
