Recipient: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Grant: $79,918 PIs: William Selbig, PhD and Roger Bannerman
Completion: 2018
Project Summary: 14
Background and Need
In 2004, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) first published permeable pavement guidelines for full and partial infiltration designs. These conveyed pollutant reduction credits for various pollutants. A research question later arose on the extent to which no-infiltration designs reduce pollutants. Moreover, is it of such significance such that WDNR can offer pollutant reduction credits to those who use no-infiltration permeable pavements? From a wastewater treatment perspective, passing stormwater runoff over open-graded aggregate is like a trickling filter in primary sewage treatment.
In 2014 WDNR and industry collaborated to build and monitor pollutants from a site in Madison, Wisconsin with pervious concrete, porous asphalt and permeable interlocking concrete pavement (PICP). The contributing drainage area (CDA) was a busy asphalt parking lot some ten times larger than the permeable pavements. Runoff from an adjacent, busy asphalt parking lot was directed to the pavements show in the picture below. Three PICP areas are shown in the foreground. Pervious concrete and porous asphalt are in the background as well as the asphalt parking lot.
Pollutant monitoring was conducted from 2015 to 2016. The investment to build and monitor pollutants from the adjacent asphalt parking lot was about $577,000 including funds from WDNR and the Wisconsin DOT, as well as cash and material donations from industry. A project overview and results from USGS is available online.
USGS and WDNR requested funds from the ICPI Foundation in 2016 to monitor for two additional years with the CDA later reduced from 10:1 to 5:1, the upper limit recommended by ICPI. WNDR received funds from the ICPI Foundation specifically for water quality analysis. WDNR and the USGS donated research staff time whom monitored runoff during all of 2017 and 2018, or just over two years.