ARS | Publication request: Phosphorus Adsorption and Desorption During and After Swine Manure Spill Simulations

Submitted to: SERA-IEG 17 Bulletin
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: July 1, 2009
Publication Date: July 28, 2009
Citation: Armstrong, S.D., Smith, D.R., Joern, B.C., Owens, P.R., Leytem, A.B., Huang, C., Adeola, L. 2009. Phosphorus Adsorption and Desorption During and After Swine Manure Spill Simulations [abstract]. SERA-IEG 17 Bulletin. July 28-31, 2009, Windsor, Ontario, Canada. 2009 CDROM.

Technical Abstract: Manure spills contribute phosphorus (P) to surface waters during catastrophic events and little is known about the effectiveness of the current manure spill remediation methods with regard to the water column and sediments within the fluvial system. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to (1) understand how P partitions between the water column and fluvial sediments during a manure spill and (2) to evaluate the efficacy of the current manure spill clean-up method to remediate manure contaminated sediments. Manure spill simulations were conducted using fluvarium techniques and sediments collected from three drainage areas of two drainage ditches B-small (311 ha), B-medium (1418 ha), and A-large (4307 ha). The B-small sediments resulted in a significant greater buffering capacity (10.3 L kg-1) relative to the B-medium (4.95 L kg-1) and A-large (3.24 L kg-1) sediments and removed P from the water column at the greatest rate during the manure spill simulation. The phosphorus uptake length (Snet) for all sediments ranged from 574 to 815 m and the adsorption flux (U) ranged from 8.9 to 16.7 mg m-2 h-1. After simulating the current manure spill remediation methods, all sediments desorbed soluble P to a concentration that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency total P nutrient criteria (0.076 mg L-1) for the region by at least 67%. Furthermore, results from this study suggest that the current manure spill remediation method needs refining in order to mitigate P from the total fluvial system water column and sediment following a spill.