• Blog
  • Wastewater Testing
  • Bioaugmentation Applications
  • Useful Information
  • About Us
BIOLOGICAL WASTE TREATMENT EXPERT
Contact Us

Non-point source pollution or runoff - is treatment needed?

4/28/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
Whenever we build neighborhoods, parking lots, roads, and even farms, human activities result in pollution that enters surface water during rain events. For the past 20 years, we have required many parking lots and concrete pads to have retention ponds mostly for the prevention of flash floods. However, when we look at these ponds we see how much pollution is actually in runoff. Let's look at the pollution in runoff:



​
  • Neighborhood retention ponds disguised as water features often require additions of copper sulfate or dye as the fertilizer runoff from lawns and yards creates algae blooms. Most of the pollution is in the form of nitrogen and phosphorus but also various herbicides/pesticides

  • Parking lot, gas station. road, and warehouse lot runoff contains a blend of hydrocarbons including motor oil, fuels, and various chemicals including surfactants, pesticides, and herbicides.
    ​
While the hydrocarbons and chemicals are bad pollutants, most of our current problem is from fertilizer runoff. The Great Lakes area of the USA has had problems with blue-green algae blooms causing off-flavors and toxicity in drinking water supplies. In bays and inlets, the lakes experience eutrophication where low DO during warm months damages wild life and causes odors for neighboring areas.

Current efforts focus on creating awareness of the pollution in runoff, but are not enforcing any treatment requirements. As our population and development increases and non--point source pollution starts to contribute more "loadings" to the environment that municipal water treatment plant or industrial wastewater treatment discharges, the pollution issues may require more neighborhoods, farms, and commercial areas to have stormwater discharge permits. 



1 Comment
uk best essays review link
7/1/2019 05:17:06 am

Biological waste is going to represent some of the share that have some treatments experts that was good to make aspect. I have to check these details that were good to read all parts along fractionate report that was useful on this format this was the enough data that I received.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Erik Rumbaugh has been involved in biological waste treatment for over 20 years. He has worked with industrial and municipal wastewater  facilities to ensure optimal performance of their treatment systems. He is a founder of Aster Bio (www.asterbio.com) specializing in biological waste treatment.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    RSS Feed

    Click to set custom HTML

    Archives

    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photos used under Creative Commons from Picturepest, marcoverch, perzonseowebbyra, Picturepest, Picturepest, dsearls, dungodung, Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, aqua.mech, vastateparksstaff, hile, Aaron Volkening, amishsteve, Neil DeMaster, mklwong88, KOMUnews, Picturepest, kaibara87