The College of Engineering recently launched two stormwater management projects.\u00a0Offering new opportunities for undergraduate research, Professor and Interim Chair\u00a0of Civil Engineering Peter T. Weiss, Ph.D., works with students on recently installed\u00a0rain gardens and a StormTree system to analyze and treat stormwater runoff.\u00a0Dissolved phosphorus from engine oil, lawn fertilizer, and other sources found in\u00a0stormwater runoff can increase vegetation in lakes, rivers, and streams, altering the\u00a0oxygen levels and damaging the ecosystem. With these new tools, students and\u00a0faculty can identify ways to treat the water and remove the damaging particles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The StormTree System treats runoff flows from roadways, filtering the water through a proprietary mix that removes particles including some phosphorus. Students will analyze the effects of this system to determine how much phosphorus can be removed through this method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rain gardens project attempts to increase phosphorus removal from stormwater that enters rain gardens, which can increase phosphorus levels through the use of mulch and compost. Students and faculty will test a new design that attempts to improve performance and reduce phosphorus, resulting in less contaminated runoff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The College of Engineering recently launched two stormwater management projects.\u00a0Offering new opportunities for undergraduate research, Professor and Interim Chair\u00a0of Civil Engineering Peter T. Weiss, Ph.D., works with students on recently installed\u00a0rain gardens and a StormTree system to analyze and treat stormwater runoff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-engineering-announcements","category-announcements","category-college-of-engineering"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"dev@eridesign.com","author_link":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/author\/deveridesign-com\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/07\/ValpoCampus7-Resized-300x192.webp","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["College of Engineering Announcements<\/a>","Announcements<\/a>","College of Engineering<\/a>"],"unlinked":["College of Engineering Announcements<\/span>","Announcements<\/span>","College of Engineering<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 10 years ago","modified":"Updated 9 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on November 23, 2015","modified":"Updated on July 24, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on November 23, 2015 5:02 pm","modified":"Updated on July 24, 2025 10:04 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5699,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286\/revisions\/5699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}