2008 Woodie Awards
UI researchers study flood-contaminated soil
Mike McDonald - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: Metro
CEDAR RAPIDS - More than a dozen UI students equipped with small shovels and GPS units dug through the dirt on Tuesday where the sour smell of must and mold still permeates the air.
Undergraduate and graduate students collected the first soil samples as part of a yearlong study that will investigate changes in the city's sediment patterns after recent flooding.
"It's good practical experience," said environmental engineering major Matt Flannigan.
The junior and his peers will collect between 400 and 500 samples this week from the banks of Cedar Lake, the Cedar River, and once-saturated lawns.
Flooding alters the physical and chemical makeup of the environment and scatters chemicals from fields and river beds. And because data detailing the way floods change the soil don't yet exist, two UI civil and environmental engineering faculty members, Keri Hornbuckle and Athanasios Papanicolaou, took on the study.
Hornbuckle grew interested after noticing the Cedar River's murky appearance when floodwaters receded.
"It was just so striking the way the water changed after the flood," she said. "All of those chemicals came from somewhere, and we want to find out where."
Papanicolaou has already been able to trace the origins of some of the chemicals. Hornbuckle and her students used this information to pinpoint precise sampling sites.
When the analysis begins, researchers will proceed with two examinations. First, they will determine the amounts of naturally present chemicals, such as carbon and nitrogen, that were displaced.
Then the engineers will look for pollutants, namely dangerous polychlorinated biphenyl and chlordanes, that may have been washed into Cedar Lake and Cedar River.
PCB and chlordane were popular in the 1950s. Although banned in the late 1970s, Hornbuckle said, they are "very persistent chemicals" and may still be present in the soil. She doesn't think, however, they exist in dangerous amounts.
Because the project required outside funding, Linda Langston, the chairwoman of the Linn County Board of Supervisors, helped the College of Engineering obtain a $100,000 emergency grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct the research.
"The NSF saw this as a great opportunity, and we are really grateful [for the grant]," Langston said, noting that the ability to uncover unique information was a major selling point for receiving the money.
While Hornbuckle said she cannot predict exactly what information the results will contain, Langston said she is excited about the outcome because of what the city can learn.
"The more we know about how and where the sediment and water moves, the better equipped we will be for future flood mitigation," she said. "We are excited about the work that Keri and the university are doing."
E-mail DI reporter Mike McDonald at:
michael-d-mcdonald@uiowa.edu
Undergraduate and graduate students collected the first soil samples as part of a yearlong study that will investigate changes in the city's sediment patterns after recent flooding.
"It's good practical experience," said environmental engineering major Matt Flannigan.
The junior and his peers will collect between 400 and 500 samples this week from the banks of Cedar Lake, the Cedar River, and once-saturated lawns.
Flooding alters the physical and chemical makeup of the environment and scatters chemicals from fields and river beds. And because data detailing the way floods change the soil don't yet exist, two UI civil and environmental engineering faculty members, Keri Hornbuckle and Athanasios Papanicolaou, took on the study.
Hornbuckle grew interested after noticing the Cedar River's murky appearance when floodwaters receded.
"It was just so striking the way the water changed after the flood," she said. "All of those chemicals came from somewhere, and we want to find out where."
Papanicolaou has already been able to trace the origins of some of the chemicals. Hornbuckle and her students used this information to pinpoint precise sampling sites.
When the analysis begins, researchers will proceed with two examinations. First, they will determine the amounts of naturally present chemicals, such as carbon and nitrogen, that were displaced.
Then the engineers will look for pollutants, namely dangerous polychlorinated biphenyl and chlordanes, that may have been washed into Cedar Lake and Cedar River.
PCB and chlordane were popular in the 1950s. Although banned in the late 1970s, Hornbuckle said, they are "very persistent chemicals" and may still be present in the soil. She doesn't think, however, they exist in dangerous amounts.
Because the project required outside funding, Linda Langston, the chairwoman of the Linn County Board of Supervisors, helped the College of Engineering obtain a $100,000 emergency grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct the research.
"The NSF saw this as a great opportunity, and we are really grateful [for the grant]," Langston said, noting that the ability to uncover unique information was a major selling point for receiving the money.
While Hornbuckle said she cannot predict exactly what information the results will contain, Langston said she is excited about the outcome because of what the city can learn.
"The more we know about how and where the sediment and water moves, the better equipped we will be for future flood mitigation," she said. "We are excited about the work that Keri and the university are doing."
E-mail DI reporter Mike McDonald at:
michael-d-mcdonald@uiowa.edu
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