2007 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416) Identify optimum inexpensive compost plus byproducts which can be used in Biomat filters to protect surface water from excessive levels of Pb, Cu and other contaminants of interest from an APHIS facility, and the time before Biomat replacement will be needed. APHIS needs such a technology to comply with modern environmental standards. 1b.Approach (from AD-416) Surface runoff waters will be collected from both the Cu-Pb walls and parking lots to determine the capacity needed in a Biomat filter to attain adequate treatment to remove excessive contaminants. When the typical composition of the runoff waters has been assessed, Biomat compositions will be evaluated with representative runoff water to determine the percolation rate and surface area of a Biomat needed to adequately remove contaminants to meet surface discharge requirements. Biomats will be installed and monitoring continued to verify effectiveness in the field. 3.Progress Report This report documents research conducted under a reimbursable agreement between ARS and the USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Additional details of research can be found in the report for the parent project 1265-12000-037-00D, Risk Assessment and Remediation of Soil and Amendment Trace Elements. The ADODR worked with the APHIS manager and cooperators to plan the proposal which was funded. Unfortunately, it took 8 months to complete the ARS paperwork to establish the Specific Cooperative Agreement with UMD to conduct the tests. That has now been completed. An experienced graduate student has been selected to conduct the studies, and the work has begun. The ADODR meets regularly with a Specific Cooperative Agreement cooperator at UMD to plan and evaluate research findings. The APHIS project manager is kept informed on a regular basis about progress in the study. This agreement was established with APHIS to evaluate use of a compost filter system to remove Pb, Cu and other parking lot runoff contaminants from their building on BARC-East. The building was constructed with a Pb-Cu exterior wall material, and no system was planned to prevent runoff of corroding Pb and Cu into surface waters near the building. This technology is under development in cooperation with the University of Maryland Department of Civil/Environmental Engineering, and their cooperators Impact Development and Filtrexx. The strategy is to use plastic mesh tubes of compost to serve as a chemical and sorbent/filter system to remove suspended and dissolved contaminants from surface runoff water. Such tubes of composts in plastic mesh have proven effective in removal of simple suspended sediment, and the specific metal binding and chelation capacity of compost is expected to adequately remove Pb and Cu. Yard debris compost is the usual media used in the tube in order to obtain high flow rates. The addition of Fe, Mn, or Al hydroxides, or byproducts rich in these elements, is expected to significantly increase the effectiveness of removal of Pb and Cu from the runoff water. Phosphate runoff should also be prevented, and suspended solids. The plan of work was developed among all cooperators. Grab samples of runoff have been collected at several storm events to find the range of contaminants in the runoff. Flow-proportional samples will be used to provide a full characterization of the runoff composition. During the design stage, test composts and amended composts will be irrigated with the runoff solutions to characterize treatment capacity in relation to compost characteristics. Materials needed for these tests have been collected and analyses of the grab samples are underway. Breakthrough will demonstrate the loading capacity of each compost being tested, and flow rates will show the amount of treatment capacity required to treat the predictable runoff. A report on these tests will be prepared and the field installation designed and reported in that report.