HR: 0800h
AN: H21E-1392    [Abstracts]
TI: Predicting Nitrogen Transport From Individual Sewage Disposal Systems for a Proposed Development in Adams County, Colorado
AU: * Heatwole, K K
EM: kheatwol@mines.edu
AF: Colorado School of Mines, 1500 Illinois St. , Golden, CO 80401 United States
AU: McCray, J
EM: jmccray@mines.edu
AF: Colorado School of Mines, 1500 Illinois St. , Golden, CO 80401 United States
AU: Lowe, K
EM: klowe@mines.edu
AF: Colorado School of Mines, 1500 Illinois St. , Golden, CO 80401 United States
AB: Individual sewage disposal systems (ISDS) have demonstrated the capability to be an effective method of treatment for domestic wastewater. They also are advantageous from a water resources standpoint because there is little water leaving the local hydrologic system. However, if unfavorable settings exist, ISDS can have a detrimental effect on local water-quality. This presentation will focus on assessing the potential impacts of a large housing development to area water quality. The residential development plans to utilize ISDS to accommodate all domestic wastewater generated within the development. The area of interest is located just west of Brighton, Colorado, on the northwestern margin of the Denver Basin. Efforts of this research will focus on impacts of ISDS to local groundwater and surface water systems. The Arapahoe Aquifer, which exists at relatively shallow depths in the area of proposed development, is suspected to be vulnerable to contamination from ISDS. Additionally, the local water quality of the Arapahoe Aquifer was not well known at the start of the study. As a result, nitrate was selected as a fo-cus water quality parameter because it is easily produced through nitrification of septic tank effluent and because of the previous agricultural practices that could be another potential source of nitrate. Several different predictive tools were used to attempt to predict the potential impacts of ISDS to water quality in the Arapahoe Aquifer. The objectives of these tools were to 1) assess the vulnerability of the Arapahoe Aquifer to ni-trate contamination, 2) predict the nitrate load to the aquifer, and 3) determine the sensitivity of different parameter inputs and the overall prediction uncertainty. These predictive tools began with very simple mass-loading calcula-tions and progressed to more complex, vadose-zone numerical contaminant transport modeling.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects (4802, 4902)
DE: 1847 Modeling
DE: 1875 Vadose zone
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005