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Street sweeping and storm water system cleaning activities are conducted regularly by ODOT to comply with NPDES permit requirements and to ensure roadway safety. Once collected, these materials are classified as solid waste and require cost-effective and sustainable management. This research report summarizes tools for tracking and quantifying the volume of material collected and associated management costs, comprehensive analytical testing of solid waste materials from multiple locations, design and construction of a prototype decanting facility, metal adsorption media testing at the prototype decanting facility, and the development of standard operating procedures to operate the new facility. Detailed analysis shows the solid waste disposal cost is less than 5% of the management activity and management priorities should focus on cost-effective collection and management versus disposal cost. Multiple factors were utilized to rank decanting facility location options for each District in Ohio. Metal adsorption media testing showed significant removal of many heavy metals and operational observations at the new prototype facility showed promise for effectively managing these waste materials.

Urban stormwater management is evolving toward sustainable approaches which rely on dispersed small-scale bioretention BMPs. One such BMP is the flow-through planter, commonly applied in areas where infiltration into in situ soil is restricted or not possible. A project was developed to evaluate 18, vertically scaled flow-through mesocosms. Three replicates of six treatments, including four soil mixtures containing varied percentages of sand, compost and topsoil, were tested for orthophosphate and nitrate removal, volume reduction capabilities, and peak flow attenuation through the application of a synthetic solution over a simulated 2-inch, Type II storm event. Runoff volume was significantly (p <0.05) reduced compared to controls. Nutrient levels observed along the hydrograph at different time-steps and flow rates revealed patterns not apparent in cumulative results. The observation of preferential flow patterns along with variability in nutrient removal across treatments highlights the need for design modifications of flow-through facilities.

In recent years, green roofs have become an accepted solution in ecological urban design to mitigate the impacts of impervious surfaces (Berghage, Beattie, Jarrett, Thuring, & Razaei, 2009). An experimental research project was conducted at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES) Green Infrastructure Research Area at South Farm of Mississippi State University to determine how medium depth and slope gradient on rooftops affect plant cover and survival. Plant cover was monitored monthly by photographing the experimental green roof platforms. Photoshop and AutoCAD software programs were employed to digitize and to calculate plant cover from the images. All recorded data was analyzed with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests. It was determined that the effects of medium depth and slope are statistically significant on plant cover and survival.

This report describes the methods used to collect stormwater runoff and evaluate a street sweeping program on U.S. Highway 151 in Madison, Wisconsin. The study was a cooperative effort among the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT), U.S. Geological Survey, and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. In a swept highway section, samples were collected to determine street dirt yields before and after a cleaning from either a vacuum-assisted or a mechanical-broom sweeper machine. Sweeping frequencies of twice per day, once per week, and once every two weeks were used during the study. On an unswept highway section of the study, street dirt yields are presented as weekly collections, and before and after runoff events. Water quality concentrations and flows are also presented for the unswept highway section. Average concentrations of selected contaminants are compared to concentrations measured in other studies of highway runoff.

Although pervious concrete was first used in the nineteenth century, it has only recently begun to increase in popularity. As urban areas expand, the problems associated with runoff management have become more challenging. The focus on the negative environmental effects associated with pavement runoff has also increased. These two issues have spurred the recent interest in pervious concrete pavements; pervious concrete, however, has deficiencies which limit its application as pavements. These limitations include low compressive strength, flexural strength, clogging, and other durability issues. The overall purpose of this project was to provide tools to evaluate and improve the durability and strength of pervious concrete such that it may be more confidently employed in urban roadways. The specific objectives of this project were to (a) investigate the effect of mixture design on strength of pervious concrete (including the effect of fibers), (b) evaluate effect of clogging materials on coefficient of permeability, (c) and investigate the use of the dynamic pressurization test to evaluate the durability of pervious concrete. This report documents the results of the laboratory testing, and presents recommendations for mixture proportioning. In addition, recommendations are provided for optimizing the balance between compressive strength and permeability.

The physical-chemical characterization and control of highway storm water and snowmelt runoff represent very significant challenges to the Ohio Department of Transportation. This research examined specific physical, chemical and hydrologic aspects of storm water and snow from a series of highway sites around Cincinnati, Ohio. Examination of storm water focused on a previously developed experimental site located on southbound I-75 in Cincinnati. A series of ten highway snowmelt sites located around the Cincinnati area, were also examined. A control site for both rainfall and snowfall was located in urban Cincinnati, but located several kilometers from I-75 to avoid any direct exposure to highway influences. This research focused on a passive structural best management practice, a partial exfiltration reactor (PER) configured as a linear trench which was also located at the experimental site on southbound I-75. This system was examined for a series of discrete storm water events and was loaded directly by lateral pavement sheet flow, qsf from the I-75 pavement.