The document studies the phenomenon by which waste water from a wood processing plant became stabilized after discharge onto an adjacent peat bog in Northern Minnesota. It was thought that peat might be ultimately used for on site water pollution abatement and an explanation of the mechanism involved should be determined. Both batch type experiments and continuous loading studies were conducted to study aerobic trickle-type filtration processes using natural peat as the filtering media to remove phosphates, calcium and reduce B.O.D. of effluents (both natural and synthetic) and the use of column and lysimeter studies of natural peat removed from bogs to study the mechanisms involved in absorbtion of elements in sewage and synthetic effluents and determine loading rates.