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EPA’s permeable pavement research and the Edison Environmental Center
Citation:
BORST, M. EPA’s permeable pavement research and the Edison Environmental Center. Presented at LABS21 2010 Annual Conference, Albuquerque, NM, September 28 - 30, 2010.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
A deteriorated parking area on EPA’s Edison Environmental Center needed replacement. The replacement offered an opportunity for the facility managers to reduce the impervious footprint and the reduce stormwater runoff volume. This also provided researchers from the National Risk Management Research Laboratory an opportunity to document the ability of widely-used permeable surfaces to manage stormwater and the associated stressors. The design incorporates parking areas surfaces with interlocking concrete pavers, porous concrete, and porous asphalt. There is also a parking area constructed of traditional impervious asphalt that serves as an experimental control. All driving lanes are paved with traditional asphalt. Instruments installed during construction will monitor the passing wetting front and the subsurface temperature profile. Piezometers and slotted wells provide locations to monitor accumulated water within the storage layer. The monitored permeable parking rows are divided longitudinally into nine equal-sized sections. The even-numbered sections are temporarily lined and piped to collect analytical samples of infiltrating water for stressor determination. The parking lot opened in late October 2009. Preliminary results are becoming available demonstrating the system performance.