Most of the pollution found in highway runoff is both directly and indirectlycontributed by vehicles such as cars and trucks. The constituents that contribute themajority of the pollution, such as metals, chemical oxygen demand, oil and grease, aregenerally deposited on the highways. These can become very harmful and detrimental tohuman health when they come in contact with our water system. The connecting tiebetween these harmful highway-made pollution and our water system, which includesour ground waters and surface waters, is rainfall.The main objective of this runoff study was to characterize and assess thequantity and quality of the storm water runoff of a bridge deck that discharged into areceiving water body. The bridge deck and the creek were located in the coastal marginregion in the southeast area of Texas on the border of Harris and Galveston counties.Flow-activated water samplers and flow-measuring devices were installed toquantitatively determine the rate of flow of the bridge deck and determine differentpollutant loading by sampling the receiving water body (Clear Creek). The collectedsamples were analyzed for total suspended solids, toxic metals, and other relevantconstituents of concerns. The results illustrated that the runoff from the bridge deckexhibited low total suspended solids concentrations (which were highest in the creek).However, other metal constituents like the zinc and cooper concentration were high andabove standards. The phosphate concentrations in the creek were the highest andexceeded EPA standards. Several nitrate concentrations were also noticeably above EPAstandards.
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