Annual Report Year 2009 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

PROGRAM AREAS
ENVIRONMENTAL AND WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING
24 | VIA REPORT | 2009
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CEE graduate students and faculty in the
National Capital Region, including those
in the Transportation Infrastructure Systems,
EWR, and Geospatial Engineering
program areas. Merten is leaving Virginia
Tech soon as her husband accepts a new
assignment in the Diplomatic Corps.
Research is at a frenzied pace at the
Occoquan Water Monitoring Lab in Manassas.
This past year, Harry Post celebrated
25 years of service as a research associate
and supervisor of field operations at
the Occoquan Laboratory. He has been
working to advance the automation of
field monitoring stations in the Occoquan
Watershed, including transitioning data
collection to a near-real-time mode by
uploading information to the GOES II Geosynchronous
Satellite.
George “Woody” Underwood completed
30 years of service and continues to play
a key leadership role in the operation
and maintenance of the field monitoring
network in the Occoquan and Potomac
Watersheds.
Phil Spellerberg, Mark Lucas, and Doug
Holladay serve as the core of the watershed
and reservoir study field team and
reliably maintain an automated sampling
network that is distributed over much of
the National Capital Region.
New to the Occoquan Laboratory is
Dongmei Wang who just completed her
first year as a research associate and
laboratory supervisor. Wang has led the
effort to obtain Environmental Laboratory
Certification at OWML, and has also
played a key role in the planning for a major
renovation of the laboratory spaces at
the Manassas Facility.
Joan Wirt and Mike Gaal have had a
busy year working to accommodate laboratory
renovations while keeping current
with the analytical workload of the Occoquan
Laboratory. They have been instrumental
in bringing up new instrumentation
and helping to plan for planned laboratory
renovations.
Curt Eskridge, a long-time former employee
of the Occoquan Laboratory, has
returned to work this year on a part-time
basis to help in meeting some of the challenges
of preparing for lab certification.
Adam Fleming is a recent graduate of
Virginia Tech in microbiology, and worked
as a part-time member of the laboratory
analytical staff.
On the administrative side of the laboratory
operations, Barb Angelotti and Alicia
Tingen are busy meeting the varied needs
of the Occoquan Laboratory, particularly
as the renovation project has proceeded,
and as the lab is now also hosting David
Sample from the biological systems
engineering department who is also an
adjunct CEE faculty member working with
CEE faculty to develop a research and
outreach program in urban stormwater
management.
The EWR faculty is active providing
leadership in teaching, research and
outreach to the Virginia Tech community,
the state, the nation, and the world-wide
education and research community. The
emeritus faculty are doing well.
Clifford Randall is frequently in his
Durham Hall office and continues to interact
with students, staff, faculty and the
biological nutrient removal community.
Robert Hoehn continues to guest
lecture, particularly on his favorite topic,
tastes and odors in drinking water.
David Kibler continues to be a presence
in the hydrosystems area and is a
frequent visitor to Patton Hall. A sampling
of the activities and accomplishments of
the teaching and research faculty is provided
below.
Gregory Boardman, three of his graduate
students, and colleagues in another
department (food science and technology
— G. Flick, D. Kuhn and L. Marsh) performed
various studies at an inland shrimp
production facility that uses recirculating
aquaculture systems (RAS).
The research projects included evaluations
of the impact of chemotherapeutic
agents (e.g., antibiotics) on nitrifying
bacteria in the RAS, the performance of
the RAS water treatment operations, the
effects of ammonia and nitrite on shrimp,
and the potential benefits of feeding biofloc
(bacteria, etc.) to shrimp along with
commercial feed.
Biofloc was generated through biological
treatment of effluents from an adjacent
fish farm (tilapia). The idea that biofloc
might be a good feed supplement is gaining
momentum through the success of this
research and the work of others around
the world. In fact, Boardman is a member
of an international working group of the
Aquacultural Engineering Society (AES)
that is referred to as “Microbial Controlled
Aquaculture Systems” and dedicated to
the uses of biofloc technology.
Boardman also has a student studying
the formation of disinfection by-products
(DBPs) at a local water plant. Laboratory
tests are now being conducted to try to
simulate actual field results and to test the
impact of different water quality variables
on DBP production.
In May, 2009, Boardman was appointed
a fellow of the Department of Energy’s
National Energy Technology Laboratory
(NETL) and leader of its water management
research thrust area. His job will
be to develop, in cooperation with NETL
fellows from Virginia Tech and four other
universities (Carnegie Mellon University,
the University of Pittsburgh, West Virginia
University, and Penn State University),
a research program that will address the
water quality issues associated with energy
production systems. Research projects
are to begin in November, 2009.
Boardman continues to offer short
courses and serves as director of the
Annual Short School for Treatment Plant
Personnel. Over the past year, Boardman
worked with Holly McCall-Williams of Virginia
Tech’s Continuing and Professional
Education (CPE) to coordinate and offer
11 short courses. He also works with her
to organize a televised lecture series (approximately
eight lectures per year; 14
Virginia sites) which is sponsored by the
Virginia Department of Health.
The lecture series is designed to help
people in the water industry, and covers
a variety of topics, such as operation and
maintenance, security, setting water rates,
capital improvement plans, grant writing,
and water chemistry.
Rounding out Boardman’s outreach
efforts this past year were the duties as-
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