Treatment trains

A graph showing increasing average levels of chloride found in Atherley Narrows, (a rural sampling location, between Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe), over the past few decades, due in part to increased use of rock salt in parking lots, roadways and commercial and residential properties. From 2005 - 2020 the amount of chloride increase per year has doubled when compared to 1971 - 1986 (1.26 mg/L per yr. vs. 0.63 mg/L per yr.) (LSRCA, 2021). It is estimated that by 2120 the average level of chloride within the the Lake Simcoe watershed will exceed the 120mg/L guideline set by CWQG. (LSRCA, 2018)

Overview

A treatment train uses a combination of source (LID), conveyance and/or end-of-pipe practices to meet water quality, water quantity, water balance, and erosion design criteria for the site. These may be implemented to reduce the burden of facility maintenance, address a broader range of design criteria, increase overall treatment system performance, and/or control the rate of flow through downstream facilities. Examples of applications designed to address specific objectives include the following listed in the corresponding sections below.

1. Treatment trains designed to reduce maintenance burdens

These are the most common types of treatment trains. They typically involve installation of one or more pretreatment devices upstream or at the inlet of the primary stormwater treatment facility.

Example: Runoff into larger treatment practices such as bioretention or stormwater tree trenches may be pretreated by concrete sumps at curb cut inlets, forebays or catch basin inserts, which are designed to capture coarse sediment, debris and trash. Centralizing sediment and trash captured at the inlet or entrance to the facility reduces maintenance by preventing filter media clogging and limiting the area over which sediment and trash needs to be removed. In some cases, pre-treatment device clean-outs may be incorporated into existing municipal catch basin cleaning programs.

Performance calculation: If the downstream facility provides filtration, such as bioretention or stone filled trenches, the overall water quality performance of this facility would not increase with pretreatment because the coarse sediment and debris captured by the pretreatment device would be removed by the downstream facility even in the absence of pretreatment. The purpose of adding pre-treatment is to prevent clogging or filling and thereby reduce the cost and effort of long term maintenance and delay requirements for major facility rehabilitation or replacement.

2. Treatment trains designed to address one or more design criteria

These types of treatment trains combine practices that address different design criteria, in recognition that most individual stormwater facility types do not meet all design criteria as stand-alone facilities. For instance, stormwater wet ponds may provide water quality, erosion and flood control but not water balance control (i.e. runoff volume control). Bioretention provides good water quality and water balance control but are rarely designed for flood control.

Example: Proprietary filtration treatment device (providing water quality) draining to an underground infiltration trench or chamber system (providing water balance control). Overflows from the trench or chamber system could drain to a dry pond or other flood control facility to provide water quantity and erosion control). Another example may be to direct low flows from a stormwater management pond outlet to an infiltration practice.

Performance calculation: Treatment trains designed to address multiple design criteria may improve overall water quality performance by, for example, reducing water quality concentrations in the first facility and reducing water quality loads (through infiltration/evapotranspiration) in a second facility. Even if the effluent concentration from facility one and facility two are the same, the overall load reduction of the treatment train may be greater than provided by any one of the facilities alone.

3. Treatment trains designed to enhance overall treatment system performance

The design intent of these treatment trains is to enhance overall system performance. The previous category of treatment train may enhance performance, but the objective may not always be to address a broader range of stormwater criteria.

Example: A bioretention and infiltration chamber in series. Adding the second facility increases the overall area available for infiltration, which in turn reduces the overall load of pollutants to the receiver. This type of treatment may be advantageous where surface space is limited, but water balance requirements can not be met with available space allocated to the surface bioretention cell alone.

Performance calculation: In the example above, the bioretention facility would provide water quality load reductions through filtration (water quality concentration reductions) and infiltration (volume reductions). Since the second facility would receive effluent from the underdrain of the bioretention, no further reduction in TSS concentrations would be expected (ie. the TSS concentration would already be at the ‘irreducible’ level). The TSS water quality load would be reduced in the second facility only by further reductions in volumes through infiltration. If the parameter of interest was total phosphorus (TP) rather than TSS, there is the potential that the second facility may further reduce TP through filtration/adsorption, especially if the second facility contained reactive media designed to remove phosphorus.

Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority

Stormwater management following the hierarchical approach: Source Control measures, Conveyance Control measure and End of Pipe treatment to achieve the water quality and water balance target for lot level development of the preferred strategy.

A combination of lot level, conveyance, and end-of-pipe stormwater management practices.

Low Impact Development. A stormwater management strategy that seeks to mitigate the impacts of increased urban runoff and stormwater pollution by managing it as close to its source as possible. It comprises a set of site design approaches and small scale stormwater management practices that promote the use of natural systems for infiltration and evapotranspiration, and rainwater harvesting.

The accounting of inflow and outflow of water in a system according to the components of the hydrologic cycle.

The portion of water precipitated onto a catchment area, which then flows as surface discharge from the catchment area past a specified point.

Water from rain, snow melt, or irrigation that flows over the land surface.

Ground depression acting as a flow control and water treatment structure, that is normally dry.

Soil, sand and minerals washed from land into water, usually after rain. They pile up in reservoirs, rivers and harbors, destroying fish-nesting areas and holes of water animals and cloud the water so that needed sunlight might not reach aquatic plans. Careless farming, mining and building activities will expose sediment materials, allowing them to be washed off the land after rainfalls.

The technique of removing pollutants from runoff as it infiltrates through the soil.

Initial capturing and removal of unwanted contaminants, such as debris, sediment, leaves and pollutants, from stormwater before reaching a best management practice; Examples include, settling forebays, vegetated filter strips and gravel diaphragms.

Includes the protection of soil from dislocation by water, wind or other agents.

A body of water smaller than a lake, often artificially formed.

The slow movement of water into or through a soil or drainage system.

Penetration of water through the ground surface.

The quantity of water transpired (given off). Retained in plant tissues, and evaporated from plant tissues and surrounding soil surfaces. Quantitatively it is usually expressed in terms of depth of water per unit area during a specified period. e.g. mm/day

The combined loss of water to the atmosphere from land and water surfaces by evaporation and from plants by transpiration.

A shallow excavated surface depression containing prepared filter media, mulch, and planted with selected vegetation.

Total suspended solids

Total phosphorus

The attachment of gas, vapour or dissolved matter onto the surface of solid materials.