Meeting Abstract
P1.18 Sunday, Jan. 4 Effects of a clay cap on contaminants in water, sediments and macroinvertebrates of Kearny Marsh MCCLARY, M.*; BENTIVEGNA, C.S.; Fairleigh Dickinson Univ.; Seton Hall Univ. mcclary@fdu.edu
Sediments contaminated by organic compounds, heavy metals, and other potentially toxic chemicals have accumulated in many of the worlds deepwater and wetland environments. This project investigated a new in situ capping technology that could be used to remediate and/or manage contaminated sediments. AquaBlokTM (AB) is a patented, composite-aggregate technology comprised of a solid core, an outer layer of clay material, and polymers. When placed in water and over sediment, AB hydrates forming a layer between contaminants in sediment and the overlying water. AB was placed in a marsh between July 25th and August 3rd of 2005. For water quality in May of 2006 the controls were lowest in temperature, DO, pH, and ORP. In August of 2006 the controls were highest in temperature and duplicate plots were split between being the highest and lowest in DO, pH, and ORP. In October of 2006 a control was almost always lower in all parameters and AB was highest in all water quality parameters. In November of 2006 control temperatures, DO, and pH were the lowest whereas depth was highest. Total suspended solids were always similar in all plots as was number of benthic macroinvertebrates from cores which were low. The numbers were higher on the Hester-Dendys. For contaminants of concern (COC) in water, Cd was highest in the AB plots. Fe was highest in AB, and Pb was lowest in control plots and highest in the AB plots. Organic contaminants were lowest and highest in AB. COC in Hester-Dendy macroinvertebrates was similar in all plots. For COC in the sediment, metals and organic contaminants were highest in the control plots. These results suggest that AB is more effective in the removal of COC in sediment than it is in decreasing TSS, increasing diversity and abundance of macroinvertebrates, and removing Cd, Fe, Pb, and organic contaminants from the water column.
