Hello,
One of our clients is asking to collect the stormwater into ponds, then to treat it to be able to inject in groundwater. Since the rainfall is seasonal the treatment plant will be sized to account for such variation in the flow coming to the ponds. My concern is about the quality of the water in the pond. is there a model that can be done to know the quality of water that will be stored in the pond before discharging it to the treatment plant?
I don’t know of a model to recommend, but would start with landuse of contributing watershed, and any point sources or non point activities of concern. The cost of treatment increases greatly with sediment and other pollutants. Forests and grasslands have shown to produce the best surface waters in general. Land uses such as urban, industrial, development, agriculture, range, mining, waste dumping can be the most challenging in costs to figure out how bad he pollutants are, and then how to treat them to an acceptable level to inject into groundwater. Various biological indicators in pond life can give hints to levels of pollution, but shallow ponds may easily develop low oxygen and algal blooms that add treatment issues. One reason forests often have such good water quality is that the soils are well developed, able to take up, filter, detain and store water before releasing to streams, minimizing surface runoff (Stormflow). To some degree, ponds can help collect and store pollutants, and provide some opportunity for pollutant breakdown. Pond management can also be undertaken to aerate water to promote organic breakdown. Injecting poorly treated or contaminated waters into groundwater might present significant future problems to neighbors or others that rely on groundwater for drinking or other domestic uses. Granted, the flow of groundwater through its aquifer to some distant point has some potential to filter and breakdown some pollutants, but difficult to rely upon this without some monitoring. Some areas of the earth are so starved for water that any water stored would be a benefit, and dealing with polluted groundwater can be undertaken in various treatments at some cost and effort. Many countries would probably require a licensed engineer to design or review, possibly requiring some sort of permitting or degree of monitoring, possibly bonding. The professional people that typically deal with these subjects include certain civil engineers, geologists, groundwater and surface water hydrologists, and limnologists. I personally would not take this on without involving others, having ample liability insurance, and making sure my company is aware of the potential problems. A landowner and some remote actions can sometimes get away with making mistakes, professional consultants and licensed engineers, not so much.
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