Water treatment residues may curb phosphorus runoff.Residue from water treatment plants, often discarded as waste into landfills, may make good soil treatments for preventing phosphorus runoff from farms. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) soil scientist Jeffrey M. Novak, of the ARS Coastal Plains Soil, Water and Plant Research Center in Florence, South Carolina This article is about a city in the US state of South Carolina. For the city in Italy, see Florence. For other uses, see Florence (disambiguation). Florence is the county seat of and largest city in Florence CountyGR6 South Carolina, United States. , is studying an alum-based water treatment residual that increases the capacity of soil to bond phosphorus, a vital plant nutrient. The studies, done in collaboration with Ray Bryant, research leader at the ARS Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Unit in University Park, Pennsylvania, may benefit states along the nation's mid-to-southern-Atlantic seaboard, where sandy soils generally take up and hold less phosphorus than finer-textured soils. Increased bonding, or adsorption adsorption, adhesion of the molecules of liquids, gases, and dissolved substances to the surfaces of solids, as opposed to absorption, in which the molecules actually enter the absorbing medium (see adhesion and cohesion). would curb runoff of phosphorus. This nutrient can lower the oxygen content of water bodies and spoil the taste of drinking water drinking water supply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. . Phosphorus in manure makes agricultural facilities, such as large livestock production operations, potential sources of runoff pollution. According to Novak, chemically binding phosphorus into water-insoluble complexes using residuals containing iron oxide The material used to coat the surfaces of magnetic tapes and lower-capacity disks. , aluminum oxide aluminum oxide: see alumina. , and hydroxide may become an important management practice. The alum-based water treatment residual this research focuses on has a high phosphorus-binding capacity. A separate study, conducted on wheat by agronomist Eton Codling cod·ling 1 also cod·lin n. 1. A greenish elongated English apple used for cooking. 2. A small unripe apple. at the ARS Animal Manure and Byproducts Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, found that the treatment has no negative effect on the absorption of phosphorus by plants once plant roots grow beyond the 6-inch-deep layer the treatment creates in soil. In lab tests with sandy soil, the treatment increased phosphorus-binding potential four--to fivefold fivefold Adjective 1. having five times as many or as much 2. composed of five parts Adverb by five times as many or as much Adj. 1. over that of untreated soil. The lab studies will be repeated, and additional research will be done in the field during the next two years. If successful, this use for waste from water treatment processing not only could get rid of the waste, but also would hold phosphorus on the land until a crop uses it. |
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