Annual Report Year 2004 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

drinking water and Chen her work on copper pitting as postdocs.Master’s students Yan Zhang and Changmin Lee areextending Chen’s research on anaerobic iron corrosion. JeffParks is revealing a new treatment method that can effectivelyremove boron from drinking water. This method shouldreceive widespread attention as industry begins to focus onthis important emerging contaminant. Julia Novak is finishingup studies that explain how bubble formation inside pipescan cause premature pipeline failure.Watershed monitoring and modelingAdil Godrej continued his research work with TomGrizzard at the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory inthe National Capital Region. This research includes watershedand river monitoring, water quality assessment studies, andwatershed and reservoir modeling. The work is sponsored bythe Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the MetropolitanWashington Council of Governments, the FairfaxCounty Health Department, the City of Manassas, the NorthernVirginia Regional Commission, the consulting firm ofGreeley and Hansen, Prince William County, and the LoudounCounty Sanitation Authority. Last year, Prince William Countyfunded an ongoing research project on the pollutant retentionand export characteristics of bioretention facilities, which areincreasingly used in urban areas as part of low-impact development(LID) implementation and a replacement for conventionalbest management practices (BMPs).Late last year, Godrej and his student completed a twoyeareffort calibrating a linked Occoquan Watershed andReservoir model. The model was presented recently to theNorthern Virginia Regional Commission’s OccoquanWatershed Technical Advisory Committee (a body consistingof regional, local, state, and public representatives from 16organizations), was well-received, and the research will continueto be funded for the foreseeable future to provide continuousmodel improvement and development. This will supportat least one Ph.D.-level student. Godrej serves on theMetropolitan Washington Council of Governments’s RegionalMonitoring Subcommittee, the EPA Chesapeake Bay ProgramAnalytic Methods and Quality Assurance Workgroup, amongothers, and has recently been appointed to Prince WilliamCounty’s Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area Review Board.He was also a member of a technical group consisting of federal,state and local agencies that conducted a study of a zebramussel infestation in a quarry in Northern Virginia andassessed and recommended an eradication protocol.Water quality and reuseTom Grizzard continued as the director of the OccoquanLaboratory in Manassas and as CEE program director at theNorthern Virginia Center in Falls Church. Grizzard was reappointedto serve on the state licensing board for waterworksand wastewater works operators, and continued serving on adrought management task force for the City of Manassas, theDepartment of Environ-mental Quality Academic AdvisoryCommittee for Nutrient Criteria, and the Scientific andTechnical Advisory Committee to the EPA Chesapeake BayProgram. He also worked with local, state, and federal agenciesto develop a plan to eradicate a confined zebra musselinfestation in Northern Virginia.Grizzard’s professional society activities include membershipon the American Waterworks Association Source WaterProtection Committee, the Joint Water Reuse Committee of theVirginia Section of AWWA and the Virginia Water EnvironmentAssociation. He is a member of an international panel toreview the implementation of a series of wastewater reclamationand reuse projects in the Republic of Singapore. InSeptember, Grizzard was inducted into the Academy ofDistinguished Alumni of the Via Department of Civil andEnvironmental Engineering. Grizzard’s research explores nonpointsource and urban runoff control, water reuse, and waterquality management in lakes and reservoirs. Recent projectsinclude the development of microcosm cascades to evaluatedenitrification rates in full-scale sediment-water systems,development of a web-enabled system to distribute criticalinformation to public utility infrastructure stakeholders, evalu-PROGRAM AREAS: EWRTidal estuaries:Using depth andflow measurements,David Kibler andgraduate student AndrewHammond (MS2004) worked on anumerical model forthe distribution andmovement of pollutantsin Virginia’sAppomattox River.18U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Department of Commerce