Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2008KY118B

Inventory and assessment of combined sewer overflow discharges within Kentucky communities

Institute: Kentucky
Year Established: 2008 Start Date: 2008-03-01 End Date: 2009-06-30
Total Federal Funds: $22,500 Total Non-Federal Funds: $45,021

Principal Investigators: Lindell Ormsbee

Abstract: Kentucky currently has 13 communities that are impacted by combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharges. Each of these communities has entered into a consent decree agreement with the state of Kentucky to address ongoing water quality problems associated with such discharges. Given the state of the infrastructure of many of these systems, in-line storage or sewer separation may be cost prohibitive. As a result, alternative treatment strategies such as high rate disinfection may be preferable, at least in the short term. Preliminary experiments conducted in the Spring of 2007 at the University of Kentucky showed some promise for increased pathogen disinfection efficiency by using the oxidant hydrogen peroxide along with metallic catalyst, VTX. This study will attempt to validate these results for a wide range of wastewater characteristics from multiple wastewater systems in Kentucky.