New Project Evaluates Reuse, Reclamation Strategies in Potomac Watershed

The Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF) awarded Virginia Tech a contract to evaluate the health of the Potomac Watershed. The project is titled Improving Water Reuse for a Much Healthier Potomac Watershed, to Assess the Impact and Outcomes of Reuse and Conservation Measures on Ecological and Human Health on the Potomac River Watershed. 

The project will receive funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The research team includes WE&RF partners District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water), State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Maryland. The new WE&RF organization combines key research areas of both previous organizations to make a healthier watershed and assess reuse and conservation efforts. The team also includes Hazen and Sawyer, which has worked with both research foundations in the past.

The Potomac River serves as an illustration of the water cycle as a drinking water source, a national environmental treasure, and an integral component of the region’s storm water and wastewater management systems. The researchers will perform a triple bottom line analysis on treatment strategies used in the study to determine costs, impact, and benefits of reuse and reclamation strategies for improving water quality.

The research aims to actively identify “hot spots” and quantify the impact of reuse and management solutions on these endpoints. The researchers will conduct focused pilot-level studies on two sub-watersheds to compare the impact of planned and unplanned water reuse on supply and quality management.

With Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory (OWML), Virginia Tech will use paired watershed studies to evaluate impacts of current reclamation, reuse, harvesting and management strategies on source controls of pollutants. Two pairs of sites representing advanced versus conventional reclamation practices with similar land use will be selected to examine the effect of reclamation upgrades. Similarly, another two pairs of sites representing storm water reuse will be chosen for examining effects of storm water upgrades on sources, as well as two pairs of agricultural sites sampled to examine focused effects of agricultural management.

Data collected in years one and two will be used to create a temporally/spatially based framework to inform decisions regarding type and location of reclamation, reuse, harvesting, and management strategies. In year three, a framework will be developed to facilitate prioritization of reuse and management strategies for the Potomac Watershed for federal agencies, local governments, water utilities and other stakeholders as they shape future management approaches in large human-impacted watersheds. 

Source: Water Environment & Reuse Foundation