The EPA awards the University of Delaware a grant to investigate how extreme climate events and road salt could harm wetlands.
The $319,382 grant funds an effort to investigate how the combination of extreme climate events and road salt salinization may undermine freshwater wetlands ability to filter and remove nitrogen runoff.
UD Professor Shreeram Inamdar is leading the project.
"What we're doing is we're trying to look at how wetlands are affected by road salt, and specifically how the nitrogen processing ability or capacity of the wetlands is affected or impaired by road salt running off the road and entering the wetlands," said Inamdar.
While nitrogen is good for growing crops, an excess amount in the waterways can cause water pollution.
The project will analyze both urban and suburban areas between Wilmington and Newark.
Inamdar says the idea for this project came from another project near the Christina River in Wilmington.
"At one of our sites where we are doing the study, we found in the soils, very high concentrations of salt, and I'm like hey where did the salt come from,” said Inamdar. “You don't expect this level of concentration of salt in a stream side natural location, and it just so happened that our site was immediately downstream of I-95. Actually I-95 went over that creek."
This project will include assessment criteria and guidance on how road salts affect nitrogen filtering abilities of wetlands.
It will sample 13 wetlands, including three not impacted by salinization which will serve as reference sites.
The goal is to sample those wetlands during January and February – the middle of winter – but that is dependent on the weather. Just in case, lab testing will also be done to accompany the project. The three reference sites have already been sampled.
Inamdar expects results from their work to be finalized within a year.
