Characterizing a Major Urban Stream Restoration Project: Nine Mile Run (Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, USA)

Urban stream restoration continues to be used as an ecological management tool, despite uncertainty about the long‐term sustainability and resilience of restored systems. Evaluations of restoration success often focus on specific instream indicators, with limited attention to the wider basin or parallel hydrologic and geomorphic process. A comprehensive understanding of urban stream restoration progress is particularly important for comparisons with nonurban sites as urban streams can provide substantial secondary benefits to urban residents. Here, we utilize a wide range of indicators to retrospectively examine the restoration of Nine Mile Run, a multi‐million dollar stream restoration project in eastern Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA). Examination of available continuous hydrological data illustrates the high cost of failures to incorporate the data into planning and adaptive management. For example, persistent extreme flows drive geomorphic degradation threatening to reverse hydrologic connections created by the restoration and impact the improved instream biotic communities. In addition, human activities associated with restoration efforts suggest a positive feedback as the stream restoration has focused effort on the basin beyond the reach. Ultimately, urban stream restoration remains a potentially useful management tool, but continued improvements in post‐project assessment should include examination of a wider range of indicators.     

Kinetic and thermodynamic studies on partitioning of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) between aqueous solution and modeled individual soil particle grain sizes

The significance of soil mineral properties and secondary environmental conditions such as pH, temperature, ionic strength and time in the partitioning of eight selected polychlorinated biphenyl(PCB) congeners between aqueous solution and soil particles with different grain sizes was studied. The mineral properties of a model soil sample were determined, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller(BET) adsorption–desorption isotherms were employed to observe the surface characteristics of the individual modeled soil particles.Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to determine the sorption of PCBs onto soil particles of different sizes. The results revealed that the sorption of PCB congeners onto the soil was dependent on the amount of soil organic matter, surface area, and pore size distribution of the various individual soil particles. Low pH favored the sorption of PCBs,with maximum sorption occurring between pH 6.5 and 7.5 with an equilibration period of 8 hr.Changes in the ionic strength were found to be less significant. Low temperature favored the sorption of PCBs onto the soil compared to high temperatures. Thermodynamic studies showed that the partition coefficient(K_d) decreased with increasing temperature, and negative and low values of ΔH° indicated an exothermic physisorption process. The data generated is critical and will help in further understanding remediation and cleanup strategies for polluted water.