Projects

Wetland Drainage

Colin Warnick, who is the 2007 summer intern at Snyder Farm is working with Chris Obropta and Rob Miskewitz on the Wetlands Drainage Project.

Constructed Wetlands at the Rutgers NJAES Snyder Research Farm

Cleaner waters on farms: Reducing chemical pollutant runoff and sediments

Farmers have been building and using constructed wetlands for years as a natural bio filter reducing nitrate, phosphorous, or sediment run off moving to ground or surface waters. Constructed wetlands are installed in front of farmers' water retention basins or farm pond areas to naturally bio filter water runoff from rains and irrigation.

As seen in the accompanying photos, Rutgers Snyder Farm used a design provided by NRCS USDA and installed its own constructed wetlands in 1994. Twelve years later in 2006, it remains the only agricultural constructed wetlands installed in New Jersey.

Farmers can give constructed wetland experience benefits to communities

While constructed wetlands are beneficial to agriculture, greater benefits will come to communities who specify and install constructed wetlands as part of managing their community storm water runoff.

For example, the accompanying bar chart shows the natural bio filtration ability of a constructed wetland to remove phosphorous from a high school parking lot runoff in North Carolina. Compare the amount of phosphorous on the parking lot with the amount emerging from the outlet after passing through the constructed retention area.

For this high school parking lot's nitrate-nitrogen runoff, shown in the second chart, the out flow pipe from the adjacent constructed wetland also shows a dramatic reduction in pollutant from natural bio filtration. The added benefit of this constructed wetland installed in North Carolina was its exciting use by high school science teachers for educating students in field biology, environmental science, and chemistry. Elective science class enrollments increased in this school after the constructed wetland was installed, stimulating sorely needed science education advances.

Residential housing developments can specify and install small-scale diversions for slopes and swales between homes. Homeowners can even make these bio filters baffles themselves.

Most retention basins people see installed today accompany large commercial development construction like shopping malls, housing developments, industrial construction, or roads. The retention basins most used are from designs decades old, and do not provide the environmental bio filtering of constructed wetlands, which are equally easy to design and install.

While farmers should do more constructing and installing of wetlands; the question remains why communities around our farms are not using them at all.

Jack Rabin
November, 2005

Wetland Drainage Project Update
November, 2006

Recently, a project was initiated to quantify the removal efficiency of the constructed wetland system. This project is being conducted by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Water Resources Program and funded by an EPA grant. In order to quantify the mass removal of nutrients and sediment by the system, the amount of water flowing into and out of the system need to be measured. As a result, a concrete swale and a V-notched weir were designed and constructed. Flow and water quality measurements are collected at these points by automated samplers during rainstorms. It is anticipated that the quantification of nutrient and sediment removal by this system will provide the impetus for the construction of similar systems and help reduce nutrient releases to receiving waters throughout New Jersey.

Bob Hasse of Snyder Farms supervising construction of the V-notched weir.

Concrete flow measurement swale

V-notched weir

Collecting nutrient and TSS samples from an auto-sampler