bob bastian

Natural and Constructed Wetlandsfor Improving Water Quality

and Providing Wildlife Habitat

Bob Bastian, EPA Office of Water

Wetlands Can Be Effective in Improving Water Quality

• Treatment wetlands established to only treat wastewater

• Treatment wetlands established to polish wastewater effluents and provide wetland habitat

• Areas of degraded or historic wetlands used to establish treatment wetlands to polish wastewater effluents while enhancing the wetland habitat

• Both natural and constructed wetlands receiving appropriate loadings

Wetlands Can Be Effective in Improving Water Quality

• EPA's Wetland Program has established a website providing sources of constructed wetlands information at “http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/watersheds/cwetlands.html" that includes …– a series of 17 case studies of constructed treatment

wetlands– Guiding Principles document– an EPA design manual– technology assessments– databases– bibliography– etc.

Constructed Treatment WetlandSystem Description and Performance Database

“http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/watersheds/cwetlands.html”

Prado Wetlands

Orange County Water District, CA

Santa Ana River

Richland Chambers Wetlands

Athens, TX

Trinity River

West Palm Beach, FL

RENAISSANCE PROJECT

West Palm Beach, FL RENAISSANCE PROJECT

West Palm Beach, FL

Aquifer Recharge

at Wetland Reuse Site

& Standby Wellfield

Phinizy Swamp Nature Park

near Augusta, GA

Clayton County, GA

Melvin L. Newman Wetlands Center

.. Promoting public awareness and conservation of wetlands and other natural environs,...

Tres Rios Demo Wetlands Phoenix, AZ,

Mandeville

Breaux Bridge

AmeliaThibodaux

St. Martinville

Broussard

St Bernard

Municipalities using Wetland Wastewater Assimilation

LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN

Post Katrina

Louisiana wetland projects

Integrated Wetlands Improvement Project

Albany-Millersburg, OR

Illinois River floodplain

USGS, California DWR and UC Davis large-scale Delta “carbon farm” - DWR has awarded USGS and UC Davis a three-year, $12.3 million research grant to take the concept of carbon-capture farming to full-scale in a scientifically and environmentally sound way.- To capture or contain the carbon, farmers would “grow” wetlands. In doing so, they would begin to rebuild the Delta’s unique peat soils, take CO2 out of the atmosphere, ease pressure on the Delta’s aging levees and infuse the region with new economic potential.