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® ® ^ Derived from crude oil, petroleum hydro- carbons are known to be carcinogenic to humans and harmful to aquatic life. When it rains in the city, petroleum hydrocarbons run off the streets into storm drains and in some cases into rain gardens. In a project co-funded by a National Science Foundation Research Fellowship and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, civil engineer- ing graduate fellow Greg LeFevre and civil engineering professors Raymond Hozalski and Paige Novak are investigating petro- leum hydrocarbon degradation in urban rain gardens -particularly rain gardens located near busy urban streets and park- ing lots where runoff contains automobile pollutants like gasoline, motor oil, and auto coolants, as well as leachates from asphalt sealants. Water Conference, continued from page 2 topped the list of pesticides detected most frequently in agricultural stream water. Capel reported that the use of glyphosate has increased dramatically over the past decade, and NAWQA provides some of the lirstlgrge-scale, multi-location data on its occun-ence in surface water, ground water and the atmosphere. Capel also summa- rized the national findings on the levels and pathways of nitrogen, mercury and volatile organic chemicals in streams and shallow groundwater across the country and high- lighted the results of the NAWQA studies that were located in Minnesota. Capel con- cluded that there is an important role For large-scaled water quality studies, such as NAWQA: to confirm and challenge our cun-ent understanding, to provide con- text to local water quality observations, to allow for extrapolation to unstudied areas, to yields surprises and raise new' scientific and management questions, and to provide the motivations for the devel- opment of new tools for water quality investigations. Rex Johnson of the Uuited States Fish and Wildlife Service spoke at the luncheon session, addressing wetland drainage and its impacts in Minnesota. While Minnesota has lost 40 percent of its wetlands statewide, the prairie pothole region of the state often exceeds The researchers took soil samples from 75 rain garden test sites in the metro area and analyzed them for total petroleum hydrocarbons using gas chromatography. They found that the concentrations in the rain garden soils were lower than expected based on typical storm water concentra- tions, flows of storm water into the rain gardens, and ages of the rain gardens, suggesting that petroleum hydrocarbons are being degraded in the rain gardens. Since biodegradation depends upon bacteria to break down the petrolewn hydrocar- bons, LeFevre, Hozalski and Novak are now looking at whether rain gardens with higher total petroleum hydrocarbon loading rates respond with higher populations of degrader bacteria. an 85-percent reduction inpre-settlement wetlands, with 90-100 percent of the landscape now drainiug to streams. This loss of wetland habitat has a direct effect on the duck population, with 80 percent fewer mallard pairs, as a single pair of ducks requires one acre of wetland to survive. Landowners understandably want their land to be as profitable as possible, and that tension needs to be balanced against the so- cietal loss of ecological goods and services. Johnson contended that the government has communicated poorly with citizens that the Over the past four years, the Water Resources Center has been a co-principal investigator in the stormwater research of University of Minnesota civil engineering professor John Gulliver and his stormwater Assessment and Maintenance Project Team. The team is made up of faculty and students in the Water Resources Science Program, as well as the University's St. Anthony Falls Laboratory and Departments of Civil En- gineering and }3ioproducts and I3iosystems Engineering. This study of the degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in urban rain gardens is one of the many projects involy- ing the support of the Water Resources Center. environment and wildlife are essential to life, not just a component of quality of life. The solution to the problem of disappear- ing wetlands lies in aggressive marketing to citizens that caring for the environment is essential to good health, financial stability, and aesthetics. Concun-ent sessions and poster sessions during the conference v,~ere presented by various water professionals and UM researchers. Find a full listing of sessions and posters in the Book of Abstracts at wrc.um.edu. ~~ U O o I ._,~ . :~~Y°~.I~1 Members of the 2009 Water Resources Planning Committee gather in the lobby at RiverCentre in St. Paul, MN.