Comparison of Pollutant Removal Efficiency for Two Residential Storm Water Basins

Abstract

Detention basins with a low-flow concrete channel or a vegetated channel are two types of storm water collection basins examined in this study to assess effectiveness in water quality improvement. Influent and effluent data collected from four storm events include flow, petroleum hydrocarbons, nutrients, total suspended solids, three major ions, and indicator organisms. The calculation of influent and effluent mass loading for each basin determines the removal efficiency, which is used to rank the more effective basin for water quality improvement. As expected, the detention basin with a low-flow concrete channel was found to be ineffective for improving the water quality of storm water. The vegetated detention basin was also found essentially ineffective for water quality improvement for all four storms, with low influent mass loading and flushing of stored water the most probable reasons for this result.