Desorption of Pollutants from Mississippi River Sediments in the GREAT II Study Reach Lab Simulation Study

摘要

Recommendations resulting from this study include: (1) Sufficient elutriate tests have been performed to show that maintenance dredging of main channel sediments does not exceed water quality criteria. Attention should now be focused on water quality effects of opening sloughs and harbor dredging. (2) Sampling of the sediment intersticial water should be accomplished with corers to be more representative of the actual intersticial water. There must be no mixing with the overlying site water during sampling. (3) The partition coefficient gives an indication of the pollution potential of a particular pollutant. A range of partition coefficients for each pollutant of concern should be established for the different kinds of sediments found in the Mississippi River. (4) Further study of the kinetic model using other pollutants is required if the kinetics of the discharge plume are to be modeled. (5) In situ-sampling, during dredging, would facilitate calibration of the plume model. The model could then be verified under various conditions highly polluted sediment and clean water, clean sediment and polluted water, polluted sediment and water. and (6) Sediment samples cannot be preserved for oxygen uptake measurements for more than 1-2 days.