Road Weather Management Program
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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Potential Use of Reverse Osmosis in Managing Saltwater Waste Collected at Road-Salt Storage Facilities

Abstract:

VDOT captures a large volume of salt-laden stormwater runoff at its 300+ salt storage facilities throughout the state and that the disposal options for this water are limited and costly. The research was undertaken to determine if the use of reverse osmosis is a feasible method of treating the captured water. Field and laboratory tests were conducted using reverse osmosis to treat stormwater containing high levels of NaCl. The results suggest that reverse osmosis is a feasible method to reduce the levels of Cl to less than 250 mg/L. Overall, although reverse osmosis proved to be quite successful at reducing the levels of Cl, pretreating the stormwater to reduce the turbidity levels of the runoff water before it entered the reverse osmosis system was very difficult, but achievable.

Source(s):

Virginia Transportation Research Council and University of Virginia

http://www.virginiadot.org/vtrc/main/online%5Freports/pdf/06-r26.pdf

Date: 2006

Author:

Fitch, Craver, Smith

Keywords:


Environment

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