Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Puddl: Gamifying Water Conservation, Quince Assenberg, Jack Chen, Denny Glenn, Jessica Lam

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

As the global population surges, the demand for fresh water will only increase. With no technological breakthrough on the horizon, it is more important than ever to conserve water and not waste this precious resource. Water conservation is a serious issue, and will only become more severe as global warming worsens. As the global temperature increases, and rainfall becomes more sporadic, it will be important for communities to find new ways to save water. This push has already been made in certain areas in the united states, California, where they were forced to reduce their water consumption by 25%.

Through …

A Genetic Approach To Designing A Novel Biological Sensor To Monitor Water Contamination, Cynthia Bui, Anissa Rosbaugh, Israel Gonzalez, Julie Lu, Colin Kuhns, Joel Crandall, Alyssa Faulk, Miriam Nguyen

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Many cities across the country have experienced extreme water problems. The City of Portland has issued several water boiling advisories due to E. coli contamination. Additionally, there has been incidents of serious contaminants like lead leaching in water systems (Flint, Michigan). The Portland Water Bureau does not use a water treatment plant due to the quality of our water sources; a chlorination plant is used to chlorinate the water from the Bull Run Watershed (our main water source). Not having a water treatment plant makes Oregon more prone to a prolonged absence of potable water should the supply be contaminated. …

Isolated Water Circulation And Filtration System, Adrik Gurganus, Mellonie Mwawai, Wysteria Cedillo-Nielsen, Morgan Rekart, Zander Hoffman

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

One big issue we are addressing is the large amount greywater produced by average households around the country. Still, the main problem is that, in areas affected by drought such as California, people have little available clean water, and this system will greatly benefit these people directly. The Isolated water system uses a filtration combined of organic materials, soaps, dirt, foods and sink to filter out the grey used water. Since the water system is not connected with the local water system if there were a natural disaster the owner would have free access to a water source while the …

Residential Greywater Recycling System, Sophia Bui, Clare Clark, Anthony Hoang, Kim Le, Skyler Mishler, Janette Soler, Teresa Tran

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

In a typical household, a majority of the fresh water is utilized by the shower, bathroom sinks and laundry. Water exiting from these fixtures is considered greywater. This is wasteful because the greywater is being combined with blackwater making it unusable. If greywater could be separated and captured, it can be reused for other purposes. We came to the conclusion that greywater is able to be recycled and reused for flushing excreta.

Aqua Band, Jessica Peterson, Sam Behrens, Michael Desimone, Aiden Nelson, Alexandra Leamy

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

People drown all of the time. Whether it's a young child playing in the river or a college student partying on a boat, there is always the danger of drowning. It is not always easy to tell if somebody is drowning. If you are a parent, you won’t always be watching your kids. When you look away and they start drowning, there is no safe way to be alerted of your child’s situation.

Channel Movement, Error Analysis, And Impacts For Neighboring Landowners: A Lower Bear River, Ut Case Study, Russell Babb, Kellie Shawn, Todd Brown, Ayman Alafifi, David Rosenberg

Spring Runoff Conference

The Bear River Fellows program is a unique learning experience for undergraduate students giving hands-on experience in collecting, synthesizing, and analyzing environmental and ecological data. The Bear River is an important resource that provides water to farms, reservoirs, wetlands, wildlife, and hydropower generation. Because of the river’s value, it is important to understand how the Bear River channel moves and how that affects the surrounding landscape, which is a topic of interest for local land owners but especially conservationists in protecting wetlands and river ecology. We collected hydrological, topologic, and vegetative data from three persisting research sites along an 8 …

Seasonal Flow Rates Along The Lower Bear River, Ut, Todd Keniry, Dahlia Curiel, Dylan Anderson, Ayman Alafifi, David E. Rosenberg

Spring Runoff Conference

The goal of this research is to identify how flow on the Bear River in Cache Valley has changed over the last three years and how flow changes seasonally. Identifying flows is important to manage water resources along the Bear River. We collected and processed water pressure data every 30 minutes using HOBO transducers at two sites in Cache Valley (Morton, just downstream of highway 142, and Confluence which is located at the confluence of the Bear and Cub Rivers) south of the Idaho‐Utah border in 2015. We also measured flow and water stage up to three times per year …

Micro- And Nanoparticulates For Dna Vaccine Delivery, Eric Farris, Deborah M. Brown, Amanda Ramer-Tait, Angela K. Pannier

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

DNA vaccination has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional protein-based vaccines for the induction of protective immune responses. DNA vaccines offer several advantages over traditional vaccines, including increased stability, rapid and inexpensive production, and flexibility to produce vaccines for a wide variety of infectious diseases. However, the immunogenicity of DNA vaccines delivered as naked plasmid DNA is often weak due to degradation of the DNA by nucleases and inefficient delivery to immune cells. Therefore, biomaterial-based delivery systems based on micro- and nanoparticles that encapsulate plasmid DNA represent the most promising strategy for DNA vaccine delivery. Microparticulate delivery systems allow …

Procedural Treatment Options To Address Intermittent Pentachlorophenol Effluent Exceedances At A Former Wood-Treatment Site In Butte, Montana, Travis Dunkle

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The Montana Pole and Treating Plant in Butte, Montana treated wood with preservatives, mainly pentachlorophenol (PCP), which had been dissolved in a carrier fluid. Accidents and careless handling spilled large quantities of the fluid on the site, contaminating the vadose zone and groundwater. This site has been undergoing remediation since it was added to the CERCLA National Priorities List in 1987. Pentachlorophenol and dioxin are the contaminants of concern. Remediation technologies have included soil removal and installation of two water recovery trenches that collect groundwater, which is then pumped through a granular activated carbon (GAC) water treatment system. There were …

Application Of Qual2k Model To Macrophyte Rich Silver Bow Creek, Dylan Uecker

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Silver Bow Creek (SBC, Blacktail Creek to Warm Springs Creek) is a small urbanized stream in western Montana (MT) identified as impaired for nitrate, total nitrogen and total phosphorus on the 2014 303(d) list. Enrichment of SBC occurs primarily from a single municipal point source that results in excessive primary production, macrophyte growth, large diel waterquality swings, and nightly hypoxic conditions that likely impair aquatic life uses. The objective of this study is to apply QUAL2K (a surface water-quality model) to a 5.6 km long reach of SBC to predict in-stream dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations under different nutrient loading scenarios. …

Characterization Of Heavy Metal Removal From Aqueous Solutions Using Natural Fiber Impregnated With Metallic Nanoparticles, Samantha Hutchenson

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Heavy metals are found in varying concentrations in anthropogenically influenced water sources including waste water discharge from mining operations. The heavy metals need to be removed to meet applicable discharge standards and to eliminate potential health effects. There has been substantial research recently in the field of water treatment technologies to produce low-cost materials that have metal-binding capabilities. The goal of this research is to characterize the toxic metal removal capabilities of a novel, low cost water treatment system.

This research uses a natural fiber substrate and incorporates specific nanometallic particles to remove toxic heavy metals from water. Natural fiber …

A Life Cycle Assessment Of A Diesel Generator Set, Kelly Benton

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Today, nearly every industry needs a continuous power supply, as data loss can be more expensive than the capital expenditure for the backup power equipment. The demand for emergency standby power (ESP) generator sets is on the rise because of increasing industrialization. With increased industrialization comes a societal concern about the issue of natural resource depletion and environmental degradation. In response, manufacturing companies are providing more sustainable solutions in their products and processes. In this work, the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology has been applied to quantify the energy demands of each life cycle stage of an ESP generator set …

Characterizing Sources Of Nutrient Loading And Heavy Metals And Developing Best Management Practices For Grove Gulch In Butte, Mt, Garrett Craig

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Silver Bow Creek (SBC) – the headwaters for the Clark Fork River – is impaired for total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP), as well as several heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, and mercury. Blacktail Creek (BTC) is the main tributary of SBC, with Grove Gulch entering BTC before it discharges into SBC. Grove Gulch flows approximately six miles before entering BTC approximately 75 feet upstream of Lexington Avenue, and the stream drains primarily open, rolling range, a historic metal milling site (Timber Butte zinc mill) and a reclaimed mine waste repository that is now Copper Mountain Recreation …

Impacts Of Operating Parameters On Extracellular Polymeric Substances Production In A High Rate Activated Sludge System With Low Solids Retention Times, Matthew S. Elliot

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Adsorption/Bio-oxidation (A/B) process accomplishes carbon capture via bio-flocculation in the adsorption stage (A-stage) to maximize energy recovery while simultaneously providing an optimal carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio for denitrification in the Bio-oxidation stage (B-Stage). The present study evaluated the influence of the solids retention time (SRT), dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, and production of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) on bio-flocculation and subsequent carbon capture using a pilot-scale A-stage process. A mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS)-based control strategy was implemented to manage carbon capture by maintaining a constant MLSS concentration of 3,000 mg/L in response to diurnal variations in organic loading. …

Techniques And Technologies For Decontaminating Chemically Contaminated Premise Plumbing Infrastructure, Karen S. Casteloes

Open Access Theses

Recent large-scale drinking water chemical contamination incidents in Canada and the U.S. have affected more than 1,000,000 people. In all cases premise plumbing has become contaminated and disparate plumbing decontamination approaches have been applied. Premise plumbing components include the service line and piping within the building as well as various appurtenances (i.e., tanks, valves, fixtures). The overall research goal was to identify techniques and technologies that can be used for premise plumbing decontamination. To achieve this goal two separate studies were conducted and are presented as two independent thesis chapters.

The study described in Chapter 1 was designed to understand …

Sustainable Architecture Design: Environmental And Economic Benefits, Michael Babcock

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines the movement of environmentalism, and its impact on architecture and construction. During an interview with a professional architect, a basis for research of sustainable design was devised, when he explained that “good” architecture attempts to holistically integrate the external and built environment. Presently, the main measurement for sustainability is energy efficiency. Therefore, architects constantly implement new technology in an attempt to unify both the external and built environment in an energy efficient manner. Furthermore, this thesis provides an environmental and financial cost analysis of implementing sustainable design and build. Research shows that the life cycle and up-front …

The Role Of Household Antimicrobials In The Proliferation Of Antibiotic Resistance During Anaerobic Digestion, Daniel Elliott Carey

Dissertations (1934 -)

Antimicrobial chemicals in consumer personal care products have been found to increase antibiotic resistance in pure culture studies. Although many studies focus on antibiotic resistance development pertinent to medical scenarios, resistance developed in natural and engineered environments might be significant and has become an emerging concern for human health. This dissertation focuses on the antimicrobial chemicals triclosan and triclocarban. These compounds are distinctly different from antibiotics and are used in products like soaps that are labelled as “antibacterial”. Municipal wastewater treatment plants receive triclocarban and triclosan loads higher than most contaminants of emerging concern because they are frequently used in …

Estimating River Discharge Using Multiple-Tide Gauges Distributed Along A Channel, Hamed R. Moftakhari, David A. Jay, Stefan Talke

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reliable estimation of freshwater inflow to the ocean from large tidal rivers is vital for water resources management and climate analyses. Discharge gauging stations are typically located beyond the tidal intrusion reach, such that inputs and losses occurring closer to the ocean are not included. Here, we develop a method of estimating river discharge using multiple gauges and time-dependent tidal statistics determined via wavelet analysis. The Multiple-gauge Tidal Discharge Estimate (MTDE) method is developed using data from the Columbia River and Fraser River estuaries and calibrated against river discharge. Next, we evaluate the general applicability of MTDE by testing an …

A Review Of Advances In The Identification And Characterization Of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Using Geospatial Technologies, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi, Roy A. Armstrong

Publications and Research

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem (GDE) protection is increasingly being recognized as essential for the sustainable management and allocation of water resources. GDE services are crucial for human well-being and for a variety of flora and fauna. However, the conservation of GDEs is only possible if knowledge about their location and extent is available. Several studies have focused on the identification of GDEs at specific locations using ground-based measurements. However, recent progress in remote sensing technologies and their integration with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has provided alternative ways to map GDEs at a much larger spatial extent. This paper presents a review …

Sizing An Anaerobic Digester In A Rural Developing World Community: Does Household Fuel Demand Match Greenhouse Gas Production?, Ronald Keelan Greenwade

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anaerobic digestion is the process by which organic carbon is converted into biogas in the form of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄). Both of these products are greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Therefore if anaerobic reactors are improperly maintained and biogas is leaked or intentionally released into the atmosphere because biogas production exceeds household demand, these reactors may become generators of greenhouse gas emissions instead of sustainable energy producers. The objective of this research was to develop a framework to assess if the demand for biogas by a rural adopter of an anaerobic …