Camp Pendleton, CA, is home to the largest Marine Corps base on the West Coast. The 125,000-acre base is considered a top-notch training facility. Included on its grounds is the Wounded Warrior Battalion-West. This facility provides assistance to wounded, injured, and ill Marines, including those with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury. The Wounded Warrior center aims to minimize long-term problems, reduce the Marine Corps’ suicide rate, and provide the necessary tools to get Marines back on their feet.
Now completed, this $24 million, 66,000-square-foot facility consists of a two-story building with 100 semi-private suites for men and women. These rooms are fully accessible to accommodate all service members there to recover. The barracks feature a common area for games and computers, kitchen facilities, and outdoor decks with views of Lake O’Neill. Service members can also take advantage of the year-round climate to enjoy outdoor amenities like a full-size basketball and volleyball court, picnic areas with barbeques, and nature trails. It is the first facility of its kind on the West Coast.
The location of the new facility was planned to overlook Lake O’Neill and views of rolling mountains. Camp Pendleton is the largest undeveloped area along the southern California coastline. There are tremendous efforts across the military bases nationwide to adopt sustainability practices, including a trend toward conforming to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building standards. With “green” in mind, the base turned to Barnhart Balfour Beatty to provide the design-build service needed.
Given the criteria of the project, the project’s civil engineer, Calibre Engineering, turned to Bio Clean Environmental Services to provide a stormwater solution for the Wounded Warrior barracks and surrounding area. As this would be a state-of-the-art facility, the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base felt a need to focus on a system that would not only meet but exceed the new stormwater regulations.
The Challenge
Traditionally, a hydrodynamic separator (HDS) would be used in this type of project, but with new stormwater regulations, treatment requirements are becoming increasingly stringent. Many states and municipalities will not accept this type of system as a standalone BMP, on the grounds that such systems are not highly effective at removing fine solids or dissolved pollutants.
With the Wounded Warrior facility spanning approximately 6 acres, and the given pollutants of concern, a more sophisticated treatment system was needed. Pollutants of concern for the site included sediments, dissolved metals, dissolved phosphorus, nitrates, soaps, and oil and grease. Runoff from the site drains to Lake O’Neill, which is part of the Santa Margarita River watershed. This watershed is on the 303(d) list due to impairment for eutrophic conditions, which are associated with high levels of nutrients (nitrates and phosphorous). The treatment system would need to remove high levels of phosphorus.
The Solution
Bio Clean Environmental received the plans and specifications for this project in February 2009. The specifications called for a “vertical media storm filter.”
To address the challenges, Bio Clean incorporated the Nutrient Separating Baffle Box (NSBB) with an advanced Up Flow Media Filter. The NSBB–Up Flow Media Filter is a self-contained three-stage treatment system with an inclined screening system that stores gross solids and trash in a dry state to eliminate nutrient leaching and minimize maintenance costs, followed by a three-chambered high-efficiency hydrodynamic separator to provide pretreatment for an Up Flow Media Filter containing the BioMediaGREEN filter media. This filter media is capable of removing 69% of dissolved phosphorus, along with high levels of bacteria, dissolved metals and other hard-to-remove pollutants.
“This was the perfect solution because of the NSBB’s proven performance,” explains Zach Kent of Bio Clean. “The NSBB has been proven to remove 87% of TSS [total suspended solids], 99% of oils and grease, and 40% of copper through third-party independent field testing. When this is combined with the Up Flow Filter, pollutant removal is drastically increased.”
Given the project size, a NSBB–Up Flow Media Filter 8-14-96 was installed inline with the main stormwater drainage pipe. The system was sized based upon the treatment flow rate, calculated using local sizing procedures. The system also utilizes an internal bypass feature that allows it to attenuate the peak flow rate. The drainage layout was designed from scratch. All runoff is collected by multiple catch basins and drains to a single 24-inch HDPE pipe before entering the treatment system. After being filtered through the media, the treated runoff flows into a collection pipe to be discharged into a detention basin. The cost of the system was just under $60,000.
The Result
Six months after the ribbon cutting ceremony celebrating the opening of the Wounded Warrior facility, record-setting rains hit the facility’s grounds. Michael Alberson, senior environmental manager with Barnhart Balfour Beatty, notes, “During the December 2010 storms, we had days that had over 2.5 inches of rain an hour. The Nutrient Separating Baffle Box we have installed on Camp Pendleton’s Wounded Warrior project performed exceptionally well removing trash and debris and large sediments before discharging the water into a detention pond and Lake O’Neill.”
Respecting and contributing positively to the local communities, as well as protecting and enhancing the surrounding ecosystem, are a top priority for the Marine Corps base. With more than 1,000 species of plants, fish, and animals, some of which are threatened or endangered, the base makes protection of wildlife and habitat a top priority. This project earned the base a LEED Platinum certification, using features like cool roof technology, low-emitting carpet and paint materials, and operable windows to reduce heating and cooling needs.