CAS faculty awarded $2.75 million for environmental research


Professors to investigate whether treated reclaimed water can be used in the restoration of coastal wetlands in southern Biscayne Bay.

By Susan Feinberg

Gary Rand, professor in the Department of Earth and Environment, and Piero Gardinali, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, recently received $2.75 million from the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department to conduct groundbreaking environmental research and analysis. The researchers, who are also faculty in the Southeast Environmental Research Center (SERC), are leading a project that is only the second of its kind in the country to determine the feasibility of using highly treated reclaimed water for the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands Rehydration Project.

Not enough water in the natural system

The groundwater and surface water flows to Biscayne Bay, a shallow subtropical estuary, have been dramatically changed by manmade alterations as a result of the Central and Southern Florida Project. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), enacted by the U.S. Congress as part of the Water Resource Development Act of 2000, determined that there is not enough water in the natural system to restore coastal wetlands in southern Biscayne Bay.

The CERP proposed to address this need by providing highly treated wastewater to this area through a proposed advanced wastewater treatment plant operated by Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department.

The problem is that wastewater discharged from domestic households may typically contain low-level concentrations of organic and inorganic contaminants, including nutrients and emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs). While current water treatment facilities filter out bacteria and other contamination, they were not designed to eliminate these contaminants.

Researchers to evaluate potential risks of using treated wastewaters in restoration

The FIU SERC Ecotoxicology and Risk Assessment Laboratory, along with the SERC Environmental Analysis Research Laboratory (EARL) on the university’s Biscayne Bay Campus, will conduct short- and long-term laboratory and outdoor microcosm ecotoxicity studies with aquatic organisms exposed to these highly treated wastewaters to evaluate the safety and potential risks of the reclaimed waters on the Biscayne Bay ecosystem.

“This will be a scientifically challenging and highly visible study for FIU,” said Rand. “We will be applying the best available scientific ecotoxicity testing technology and the U.S. EPA ecological risk assessment framework to evaluate potential risks of the treated wastewaters to Biscayne Bay.”

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