COLLECTING STORMWATER FROM OVERLAND FLOW AT GAS WELL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION SITES

Although erosion is a natural process, the severity to which it occurs is frequently amplified by development activities in the urban environment. Construction activity accounts for up to 50 percent of the sediment load in urban areas and about 10 percent of the total sediment load to U.S. surface waters. Gas well exploration and development sites, similar to construction sites, have the potential to negatively affect the water quality in receiving streams and water bodies. One of the challenges related to water quality research when dealing with small sites is the ability to collect representative samples from overland sheet flow. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate a novel overland flow collection and sampling methodology for small sites with a focus on site selection, weir design, rainfall-runoff modeling, and sampling procedures. Descriptive statistics have been utilized to compare TSS concentrations of storm water runoff from gas well exploration and production sites to storm water runoff at construction sites.