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Please park on our experiment!
MSOE installs environmentally friendly parking lot

Key terms to this project
Combined sewer system = a sewer system that collects both sanitary (bathroom) waste and rainwater from streets and parking lots, etc.
Pervious, permeable = porous, something that allows water to pass through it
Sewer overflow = when untreated water from the sewer system is forced into basements, streets, rivers, streams or lakes during storms
Standard parking lot = Parking lots made of traditional materials, such as asphalt, that contribute to stormwater runoff. (These are impervious, non-porous surfaces.)
Stormwater runoff = rainwater that has collected oil, dirt and debris from parking lots and other impervious surfaces

Like most people, you probably don't think much about parking lots.They're a place to park your car and not much more. But standard parking lots, considered a modern necessity, can have dire water quality consequences. When rain hits parking lots, it picks up the oil, dirt, and debris that has collected there and carries theminto the storm sewer-and directly into our rivers and lakes. In natural areas, water is filtered by such items as grass and gravel on its wayto waterways. Parking lots, since they do not absorb water, speed up this process and send water and all the junk in it directly into our drinking supply. The water and debris together are known as stormwater runoff.

Even worse, runoff takes up space needed to move sewage to the treatment plants. When runoff fills up the sewers, no room is left for,well, the other stuff. Too much rainwater causes sewers to overflow – maybe into your basement.

 

What MSOE is doing to help

Students in the Master of Science in Environmental Engineering program are looking at ways to solve this problem. The MSOE Pervious Parking Lot (located on North Broadway, next to the APC Building) slows and removes pollutants in overland runoff from a large parking lot. A pervious or porous parking lot allows water to flow through it into the ground below. Before the project was constructed, the runoff flowed directly into a combined sewer. By holding back runoff, MSOE is helping to reduce the amount and frequency of sewer overflows.

 

On pervious pavement, there is no runoff because rainwater passes through the pavement, entering an 18 inch thick layer of crushed stone. It then soaks into native soils, mostly sand and gravel, or seeps slowly into a drain tile that runs along the lower edge of the parking lot.

 

This parking lot contains two different types of pervious pavement. Pervious asphalt tops the south two-thirds. Pervious concrete tops the north one-third. Driveways for accessing the parking lots have standard asphalt. Pervious pavements are created by eliminating much of the fine material from the mixes and applying special admixtures. Pervious pavements have a much rougher texture than standard pavements.This project is testing the pervious pavements performance including permeability, durability, maintenance needs, installation and winter performance.

 

In fall 2004, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District selected MSOE's Pervious Parking Lot for funding as a stormwater Best Management Practices demonstration project. Best Management projects are those that use innovative ways to solve environmental problems. The project development team included TEI Corp., a local environmental engineering firm that designed and constructed the project. MSOE is documenting the project's environmental effectiveness. Professor Willie Gonwa, P.E. is the principal investigator.