Coastal Transportation Engineering Research And Education Center

Design Concepts for treating initial runoff from causeway bridges
Dr.Kevin D. White, Principal Investigator

Historically, bridge drainage systems have been designed to empty directly into receiving waterways; either by the use of scupper drains or simply through open-rail drainage. In recent years however, this practice has been viewed to be environmentally unfriendly as the quality of the storm water runoff and the potential adverse effects it causes on receiving waters has fully emerged.	Mobile Bay "Bayway"

Today, it is preferable to treat the runoff from coastal bridges and causeways before discharging it to receiving waters. In many cases, it is not feasible to channel runoff back to land treatment locations therefore, "on-bridge" or near bridge treatment systems are required.

Mobile Bay Causway	Research Objectives: As part of the Coastal Transportation Engineering Research and Education Center at the University of South Alabama , we are currently carrying out research on design concepts for treating initial runoff from causeway bridges. Specific objectives of this research include:

Surveying current discharge and treatment practices. Developing safe and effective conceptual designs for retrofit devices to be installed with existing runoff collection and disposal systems. Fabricate prototype models of storm water treatment devices for testing. Compare the performance of new conceptual designs to commercially available devices.

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