Wetlands

[Music] Westlands sometimes called swamps pet lands marshes or bogs places where water stands at least some part of the year a natural habitat for animal and bird life a part of our natural environment for millions of years wetlands are often thought of as mysterious desolate and a wasteful use of land but current research is is revealing that wetlands are a valuable natural resource and one of our most productive ecosystems wetlands have a natural capacity for absorbing nutrients from water this natural function could be used to provide for removal of nutrients that remain in Municipal Wastewater after secondary treatment this tertiary or Advanced treatment that Wetlands May provide is being studied in Michigan and Florida with support from the National Science Foundation results May show that wetlands and humans are able to create a partnership with benefits for both studies underway are concerned with a number of questions could Wetlands provide Advanced treatment for Waste waterer without harming their natural state or endangering human health what would the potential cost in capital and operating expense be and how much and what kind of energy would be required when a secondary effluent is applied to a wetland nutrient removal and recovery of clean water from the effluent are accomplished by the same natural mechanisms that have resulted in the formation of the deep organic soils in the Wetland when the effluent flows over and through these soils rooted plants absorb nutrients plant growth is stimulated and the wetlands productivity increases water emerging from the Wetland is substantially devoid of the nutrients that that may otherwise have adversely affected streams lakes or Rivers the research and the commitment to it was prompted by a growing concern for an emerging National problem federal laws demanded that municipalities provide Advanced treatment of their Wastewater for small communities it was not a question of compliance but of cost many simply could not afford it it was a dilemma a being played out in small communities across the country solutions would enlist the combined talents of scientists and Engineers working with representatives of local state and federal government hoton Lake located in the rural north central part of Michigan it's the largest inland body of water in the state and a popular yearr round recreational area but it faced a crisis septic drain Fields leaking into the lake from surrounding homes were polluting and accelerating its [Music] ufic to Residents like Bob gondi any potential threat to the lake survival was a threat to the community survival it was a Time for Action in 1966 the residents of the hotton lake area were concerned about the water quality of Holton Lake they formed the Holton Lake Regional Planning Commission and in 1969 the study did show that the the water quality of hotton Lake was in Jeopardy from that point the study showed that the only practical way to deal with it was with a sanitary sewer system construction of a centralized waste water treatment system for a small rural community was an enormous Financial undertaking but to do nothing would eventually cause health problems and economic catastrophe for the area the three townships surrounding the lake formed the hoton lake Sewer Authority a unit of local government that would handle the management of wastewater treatment the system would have to provide a needed service at a cost the community could afford the treatment cycle involved in waste water management is concerned with three main stages primary and secondary stages of treatment of municipal waste waterer removes most of the suspended solids and carbonaceous material that would use up valuable oxygen resources of receiving Waters the tertiary or Advanced stage of treatment removes the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen remaining in the secondary effluent this final stage of treatment prevents these nutrients from reaching the receiving Waters where they would stimulate the growth of algae and other Aquatic vegetation without this Advanced stage of treatment this vegetation upon death and decay releases nutrients to the water and may exert a demand for oxygen a lake then becomes rich in dissolved nutrients and deficient in oxygen and when oxygen levels in the water drop fish may die a lake ecosystem can become self-sufficient in cycling of nutrients this condition called nutrification is known to be accelerated by discharge of nutrient latent effluence into lakes streams and rivers although these nutrients can be removed chemically and physically the prohibitive cost for the people at hoton Lake led to the Innovative idea of using a wetland for that purpose TC Williams president of Williams and works the engineering firm on the Hoten Lake Project recalls meeting with the state of Michigan to discuss using the nearby state-owned Wetland for advanced treatment of secondary treated Wastewater and since no one had done a deliberate discharge of treated Wastewater into a wetland for advanced treatment we didn't have any experience that everyone could agree was a satisfactory experience and therefore there wasn't any history and therefore you can't do it until there is some history now out of that meeting or in that meeting was a chat by the name of Dr John kadlick from the University of Michigan and he thought that the idea had some Merit and so he went back and talked about it and thought about it and he and together with his brother who's also on the faculty at the University of Michigan went to the National Science Foundation and were able to work out an arrangement to do a study the state of Michigan had reservations about using the Wetland for Wastewater management and approved a research program that would answer their concerns a University of Michigan research team would carry out the scientific work first the Natural Pet Land ecosystem was studied in [Music] detail this was followed by Wastewater irrigation of small test plots to validate the ecosystem models results were good enough to justify The Next Step a pilot phase these results in turn were so encouraging that the state of Michigan agreed to permit the fullscale testing of the concept to use the Wetland for Wastewater management construction funds were provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency the state of Michigan and the hot and Lake Community to build a pipeline that would carry the secondary effluent from the main treatment plant into the Wetland the system was designed to adequately serve the 16,000 residents of the community and to cover projected growth over the next 20 years the effluent is pumped to the distribution pipe which runs across the width of the marsh this 12in pipe has small Outlet nozzles every 30 ft each discharging about 16 Gall per minute about 1 million gallons of treated Wastewater flows into the Wetland each day enough to empty the secondary treatment pond in 3 months during the initial year of operation 65 million gallons of treated waste water were applied to the Wetland the oxidation pond system system which provides primary and secondary treatment is large enough to store the effluent during the fall and winter months when it can't be applied to the [Music] Wetland research here is now in the proof of concept stage the ecosystem models that were constructed and calibrated in earlier stages are being verified with actual field data in a full scale experiment the ecosystems uptake of phosphorus and nitrogen is being investigated to determine mechanisms of nutrient removal other important observations include impact on public use of wetland the potential benefits from increased Wetland productivity and the effect on the quality of receiving Waters Dr Dr Robert catlick of the University of Michigan and principal investigator of the hoton lake Wetland research Wastewater is being pumped to this 2,000 acre Wetland from primary and secondary treatment at the hotton lake Sewer Authority located about a mile and a half from this point this waste water is already fairly clean by most standards but not good enough by today's Advanced treatment standards you could characterize it as about a teacup of fertilizer and a tank car pure water but that small amount of fertilizer leads to a lot of alal growth duckweed seaweed if it's in a lake hon lake is a good recreational Lake and that's not a desirable effect of the Wastewater from this community so that water is currently being pumped to this Wetland where those same effects are taking place however in this environment which is already quite a weedy algo ridden area uh it's not noticeable it's not as undesirable as it would be in another location that water as it travels in a thin sheet across this very very flat Wetland loses the nitrogen and phosphorus that make the plants grow the first step in that process is absorption on a on a Pete soil Black muck that's characteristic of most swamps there it is held until it's needed by the plants in immediate vicinity and Incorporated in their tissues each fall as the grasses turn brown the leaves fall off these bushes that material is then returned to the soil and incorporated as part of the [Music] soil the water in turn makes its way across the surface of this wet land about three miles from here it exits into a small impoundment and then down a stream to the mosan river however the cleanup of that water occurs within about 100 yards of its point of introduction into the [Music] Wetland the wet land's natural ability to absorb the nutrients is an important Link in the cycle which sustains all of life the source of the energy needed by all plants and animals to sustain life is the Sun but only plants using that energy have the capacity to transform carbon dioxide and water into biomass the energy from the sun which is harnessed by the Wetland vegetation reaches people as we Harvest and consume the plant and animal life sustained by the Wetland thus completing the nutrient cycle logical question could be asked what's happening to this particular ecosystem one would like to think that we're not doing something drastic to a part of the world in which we live uh the answer uh is looking around you would say not much because there's very little impact on this ecosystem in those things that you can see yes close to the point of discharge The Cattails are larger they are quite a bit larger they're twice as high in fact and in other obvious ways this ecosystem is more productive near the area of discharge than it was before there are some subtle effects however that you can't see with the naked eye these could include such things as an alteration of the soil an alteration of the Alo and microbial population that live here in so far as we've been able to determine at this point none of these effects appear to be deleterious to this ecosystem there are a lot of things that need to be studied especially things that need to be studied in the long term on the large scale we need to know the impact on the types of plants and animals that occupy this Wetland these could change they haven't changed in the first two years but we're pretty confident they will in the long run we can work our way all the way down to the very very small creatures that live here the bacteria since we are putting a waste water into this Wetland there could be things in that water that that would be harmful not necessarily to humans alone but also to the animals that live in this wet land we need to know more about these things so that we don't make a mistake that we'll learn to regret in later years with the encouragement of Michigan's Department of Natural Resources a 20-year monitoring program was established to assess any impact on the wetlands Wildlife the Hoten Lake Community committed itself to employ a biologist to study the biota of the swamp and to track changes over a long period of time biologist Mary RAB conducts this aspect of the research the Wildland is just such an incredible place there's there's so much in the way of plant life and animal life out there it's it's unbelievably diverse and complex we're concerned about all the wildlife uh that occur occurs on on the Wetland um we deal with everything from fish to snakes to the insects birds and mammals and we're interested in knowing whether the uh discharge is creating more favorable habitat for some species or perhaps will result in the loss of certain species some animals may not be able to tolerate conditions created by the discharge and new animals may come in they change in response to changes in water quality and the vegetation the information that has been gathered will be compiled and analyzed and placed into a project report at the end of the summer it will be used to compare with data gathered in previous years and in future years uh in an effort to assess changes that may have occurred on the Wetland up to this point the information that has gathered shows that there has not been an adverse impact on the wildlife as a result of putting the esent onto the Wetland to date research results indicate that a wetland can be used to manage Wastewater refluence without adverse effects by using the Wetland for advanced treatment it has been estimated that the cost savings over a 20-year period at hoton Lake will exceed 1 $ 1.2 million compared to land application the next least expensive alternative at hoton Lake researchers are studying the impact of managing waste water using a natural Wetland that is large in comparison to the population it is serving in contrast related research at a downstate Michigan site is studying a land application system that has unexpectedly turned into a wetland Vermontville a community of 900 people 60 M southeast of Grand Rapids the town utilized a conventional land application system that during the first year of operation created a wetland that Dr Jeffrey souland a geologist with Williams and works and biology Professor Fred beas with Grand Valley Community College are now studying the seepage Fields became overgrown with Wetland vegetation creating a natural habitat for [Music] wildlife studies show that phosphorus is being removed as efficiently as with land application no harvesting of grasses or soil tilling has been needed since the Wetland emerged each of initial ryome clusters in the first transplant consisted of a This research will include documentation of flow and water quality identif if in and quantifying plant species Wildlife benefits energy and costs the Vermontville site provides a unique opportunity to study how we might be able to use the Wetland concept for advanced treatment in places where natural Wetlands don't exist in contrast to the Michigan research sites Florida a state abounding in swamps provides an excellent opportunity for researchers to test the Wetland treatment concept under differing Geographic and climatic [Music] conditions this Cypress Dome is a living laboratory where scientists and researchers are studying the potential role of this natural Wetland ecosystem in Wastewater management Cypress domes are sorcer shaped depressions where cypress trees are growing the tallest of the trees are in the center thus creating the appearance of a dome domes are roughly circular in shape and they can be as large as 25 acres scientists at the University of Florida in Gainesville are also studying how this ecosystem obtains and uses the Natural Energy it requires at the same time they're attempting to find out how that energy may be used in partnership with people people to provide a necessary service to society this complex balance with nature has been the life study of ecologist Dr HT odm director of the University Center for Wetlands the Vitality of our economy depends on two main sources of energy one we recognize the fossil fuels that power our Industries cars and urban bustle the other is the work of the renewable energies of sun wind rain and geolog iCal process in building our soils driving agriculture forestry and Fisheries cleaning and refreshing our Waters and air and making life possible now an economy is vital if it uses its environmental energies in partnership with those of humans for example wetlands are nature's systems for cleansing and recycling Waters by arranging our wayte so they can be reconditioned by the swamps a partnership is developed so that nature and man or symbiotic now present Society we mine nutrients like phosphorus at Great expense fertilize our farms and forests eat the food and then pay more money to get rid of the phosphate and the sewage waste so it will not make our Open Water to utopic to remove nutrients there are two ways of providing tertiary wastewater treatment here fossil fuels Drive the nutrient flow from source to syn in this technological approach for final treatment all the energies are directly or indirectly coming from the fossil fuels and do not take advantage of the potential role of wetlands in managing Wastewater the diagram shows that the system is not using any energy from the environment this is a poor decision since the swamps need the nutrients to grow healthy trees and Wildlife and Humanity needs the cleansing action in contrast to the technological approach using fossil fuels the Wetland systems for tertiary treatment use energy from the Sun this cyclic pattern also conserves valuable nutrients like phosphorus recycling is a great ecological principle there is neither shortage nor waste for the partnership Cycles to each what is needed a swamp is a solar energy system for tertiary treatment of waste it is naturally self-maintaining and likely to be more cost effective than technological Alternatives that use fossil fuels too long we have thought of sources and sinks whereas the principle for fitting humanity harmoniously energetically and efficiently to the biosphere is by shared Cycles in continuous flow in short humanity is a part of a natural landscape wells around the sewage Dome are just as low as the wells around the control yes okay Pete do you see the same under Dr odm's Direction a research team at the University of Florida is studying the use of Cypress domes As Natural filters and purifiers for advanced treatment of secondary treated effluent how about the duckweed duck co-investigator Dr Katherine Ule and a research team at the center for Wetlands conduct regular visits to a site that was set up to test this concept the research site is located near a permanent year- round residential Trailer Park Community outside of Gainesville the concern for the ability of small communities like the 350 residents of the trailer park to afford an advanced wastewater treatment system led to the experimental use of the Cypress Dome Wetland for this purpose the secondary treated uent is piped into this Cypress Dome from the trailer park wastewater treatment plant the concept of using the Cypress dome for advanced treatment relies on natural processes to cleanse the waste water treated waste water is applied to the center of the Dome and allowed to percolate through the underlying soils biological uptake by the vegetation combined with filtering action from the organic layer removes nutrients from the effluent the water moves down to join groundwater in the region of the Dome okay Pete why don't we get these two trees out in here this one and then that one over here researchers here are studying the growth rate of trees nitrogen and phosphorus uptake by vegetation changes in animal population and the role of swamps in conserving water and energy do this one first yeah okay this is 1667 okay what's the date 1 of October okay 8.93 8.93 okay and let's check the cones there are some cones but not very many yeah there were some by the tower the other day that was really L yeah for almost 6 years now we've discharged Wastewater into this Cypress Dome at the rate of of 1 in per week we were concerned ultimately with the possibility that this cypr Stone this ecosystem may serve as a natural Advanced wastewater treatment system for a small human Community we are also concerned about the structure and function of the Cypress ecosystem would the added water and the added nutrients adversely affect the system would it kill the trees would would the animal populations change just what kind of an effect would this treatment have on the system we were pleased to find that the primary productivity has increased the trees grow faster seedlings germinate the the major components of the ecosystem seem to be pretty much the same as they were when we started animal populations have shifted a little bit nutrient Cycles uh indicate that that most of the nutrients are being retained within the system and are not contaminating the groundwater so we're very pleased with the the lack of an adverse ecological effect on the Cypress D ecosystem I think there are two important things then that have come out of this research for one we do understand a lot more about the structure and function of Cypress ecosystems and we see that that these ecosystems are really a lot more flexible than we gave them credit for in the very beginning they can tolerate a fair amount of interference from society from human communities without disturbing the normal patterns and flows within the system but more importantly I think we've found that a natural ecosystem such as a cypr stone May provide a service or play a role that the that hum Society can tap as a resource and so I think our future work ought to Center on finding out what kinds of roles what kinds of services these ecosystems can provide so that we can tap them as a resource rather than dredging or or draining or failling them and ignoring them as the tremendous resource that they may be what happens to the viruses of human origin that survive entry into the Cypress Dome from the effluent being placed there viruses are to be trapped in the upper mantle of the soil in the seepage process thus preventing them from escaping the Dome and reaching the groundwater the Florida State Department of Health is monitoring and Reporting on significant public health concerns related to this concept field biologists from the epidemiology Research Center at Tampa visit the site monthly to test wellwater surrounding the dome for viruses of human origin these filtered samples are the first step in the complex process of trapping viruses as part of the same research study the residents of the trailer park participate in a regularly scheduled Health monitoring program hi Betty hi Joanne how are you that's fine how are you Public Health surveys are conducted during monthly visits to the trailer park to monitor the health of the population she's had a little bit of a cold here and did you take her to the doors yeah we took her Sunday this information is cross referenced for any evidence of viral or mosquito born illnesses we'll see you again next month thank you okay bye bye the virus samples and Health Data are taken to the main laboratory facility in Tampa for extensive testing and Analysis under the direction of the center's virologist Dr Flora May Wellings researchers are attempting to find the types and the numbers of viruses found in the dome's soil layers whether the viruses are trapped and absorbed in the soil thus preventing them from reaching the groundwater and whether viruses trapped in soil are inactivated before being released the epidemiology Research Center was charged to determine the fate of human anov viruses that are present in affluence once they have been discharged into a Cypress Stone milu whether or not these viruses are inactivated or killed within the Dome or whether they will Traverse and uh pass down through the soil into the groundwater and from a biological standpoint this is most important when you look at the total picture the fact fact that you ever demonstrate even a single virus is something remarkable and we have shown virus to be present in two of the wells this is why that further research continuous monitoring should be done over a long period of time within areas where this type of disposal is being done the other aspect of this type of disposal which I think is very important particularly in Florida be elsewhere is the fact that we are a mosquito State and there are certain types of mosquitoes that carry and sephtis viruses particular St Louis and we've had epidemics of St Louis and sephtis virus in Florida and we don't want them again so unfortunately the ca nigral mosquito breeds in these types of waters so I believe that there are two aspects from the biological standpoint that need to be be further explored before this becomes a truly acceptable method of affluent disposal and that is the mosquito surveillance and evaluation plus the groundwater from viruses Jasper Florida population 2800 complimenting the Michigan and gainville research the Jasper site is providing a unique opportunity to study the long-term effects of using Wetlands to manage Wastewater in the early 1920s the city of Jasper constructed the first portions of its sanitary Wastewater collection system at this time untreated Wastewater was discharged directly into a nearby Cypress strand a primary treatment plant was constructed in 1950 followed by secondary treatment in 1972 and now Personnel of the bo Engineering Corporation in cooperation with the University of Florida's Center for wetlands are studying the effects the application of Wastewater has had on the swamp over the past 60 years okay this is the area of the swamp that we've been testing which is all back in over in here some This research will also establish the engineering parameters for Designing similar flow through Wetland systems for other communities still is in as we are Downstream so that down this way we're still going to have to do more testing which they started doing last week right yes so we're in a Cypress strand the water flows through it rather than seeping down biological uptake by vegetation and the absorptive action of the underlying organic layer account for its treatment capabilities in contrast to the Michigan sites the climate here permits continuous application of waste water all year long the presence of some industry in Jasper provides an opportunity for researchers to study the movement of heavy metals through this ecosystem their findings will provide a better understanding for managing these pollutants Ernie this is the first interim report on our Wetlands project this map shows the area that we've been studying during the next decade federal state and local expenditures for construction of community Wastewater systems are expected to exceed $50 billion in an age of diminishing energy sources the challenge to Science and Technology will be to help find effective and affordable Alternatives well this is the first six Monon report and we've got another 12 months of data collection to do and another six month period in which to write the report and wrap up as we have to dig deeper and deeper for fuels they yield their energy less and less efficiently physical and chemical systems for Advan treatment of Wastewater have a large appetite for energy from fossil fuels and they require a large capital investment in contrast the use of wetlands As Natural partners for managing both the water and nutrient content of Wastewater is a more appropriate technology for advanced treatment the wetlands concept is adaptable to both large and decentralized smallscale systems it conserves natural and capital resources and uses energy from the Sun wetlands are amenable to being managed by their users and are in harmony with the environment This research may show that the role of wetlands for management of Wastewater is the most compelling of all Arguments for their preservation e