This research project will support North Carolina Department of Transportation's (NCDOT) on-going activities pertaining to the implementation of best management practices (BMPs) on NCDOT maintained highway and industrial facilities.
Under the provisions of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), NCDOT is required to perform the evaluation of BMP effectiveness from industrial facilities and highway sites owned by NCDOT. These consist of installing new and/or retrofitting existing BMP's for all fourteen (14) divisions and at numerous industrial facility sites.
As of this date, NCDOT has performed industrial monitoring programs for a stormwater wetland in Wilson County; dry detention basin at Alexander County's maintenance yard; and an inlet control, erosion control and housekeeping, and gravel pad in Orange County. Numerous highway retrofit options are being reviewed including: water quality swale, bioretention, pocket wetland, stormwater wetland, extended dry detention basin, grade control structure with grass swale, water quality hazard spill basin, level spreader with forested/vegetated filter strip and grass swale with curb cut. The overall effort for BMP assessments requires an enormous undertaking and collaboration of engineering design, installation, field monitoring, synthesis of literature information, analysis of monitoring data, and assessment of BMP performance and effectiveness.
NCDOT is currently assisted by NCSU in field monitoring and runoff sample collection (typically from influent and effluent of a monitoring site), and by others in BMP design and drawing. Researchers from UNC-Charlotte thereby propose to provide evaluation and technical assistance for the on-going BMP implementation activities pertaining to equipment wash/maintenance facilities and highway BMP monitoring sites. Four main objectives of this project are described below.For the equipment wash/maintenance facilities, we will (a) identify existing procedures and practices for equipment washing activities at NCDOT; (b) perform review of existing state-of-the art practices at other states; (c) quantify pollutants of concern in equipment-wash wastewater by performing on site sample collection; and (d) identify effective alternatives to equipment washing for NCDOT operations.For BMP activities, we will (a) provide technical management and support to coordinate BMP research project activities; and (b) assist NCDOT in site selection of monitored BMP sites and final report preparation.We will perform systematic evaluation and tracking of monitored and non-monitored industrial and highway sites (9 monitored, 3 non-monitored). Variables to monitor include: aesthetics, costs, design criteria, effectiveness, efficiency, innovation, level of service, nutrient management, pollutant removal, remediation requirements, and site constraints.We will also develop a GIS-database for all BMP monitored and non-monitored sites.
