Water-quality assessment of runoff from a rural highway bridge near Tallahassee, Florida

Abstract

Runoff from a rural highway bridge on U.S. 27 near Tallahassee, Florida, was found to have a small water-quality loading impact on the Ochlockonee River. Potential annual-runoff loads on the bridge surface for virtually all constituents studied were far less than 1 percent of those transported by the river at the study site. The loading rates for some parameters were significantly related to traffic counts, but the regression equations were limited to traffic ranges between 3,800 to 4,200 vehicles per day in 1977-78. Precipitation samples indicated that a significant percentage of the constituent loading to the bridge surface is from atmospheric deposition.

Effects of stormwater runoff from selected bridge decks on conditions of water, sediment, and biological quality in receiving waters in South Carolina, 2013 to 2018

“…The quality of the stormwater runoff may be driven by the daily traffic volume, bridge-deck area, and antecedent conditions, as some previous studies have alluded to, and (or) by atmospheric deposition from surrounding industry (Wagner and others, 2011;National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2014;Winston and others, 2015). Even though numerous studies have been conducted to analyze the effects of stormwater from highways and, to a lesser extent, from bridge decks to receiving waters nationally, no specific studies have been conducted in South Carolina at the writing of this report (Irwin and Losey, 1978;Wanielista, and others, 1980;McKenzie and Irwin, 1983;Yousef and others, 1984;Harned, 1987;Driscoll and others, 1988;Zellhoefer, 1989;Stoker, 1996;Marsalek and others, 1997;Dupuis, 2002;Smith, 2002;Granato, 2003;Malina and others, 2005;Pitt and Maestre, 2005;Smith and Granato, 2010;Wagner and others, 2011).…”