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ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

General
Associated Center
Associated Faculty

Selected Research Profiles

• Flooding, hail, tornados and hurricanes. . .who can predict?
• On the trail of antibiotics in the environment
• Biotech weapons aid in clean water battle
  
  The health of Long Island Sound and its estuarine fauna has been compromised in recent decades by high concentrations of nitrogen discharged into the Sound by wastewater treatment plants. The Long Island Sound Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan requires Connecticut and New York to dramatically reduce nitrogen discharge into Long Island Sound over the next few decades. Millions of dollars are being spent on upgrading existing publicly-owned wastewater treatment plants to install nitrogen removal (BNR) processes involving specialized microbial activities. Dr. Barth Smets and his colleagues seek to understand key facets of the process engineering and underlying microbiology necessary to ensure reliable and highly efficient nitrogen removal from wastewaters. The team has developed novel tools to measure the key microbial activities and to evaluate whether wastewaters contain the likely inhibitory substances to the microbial processes. Dr. Smets is also examining innovative new biotechnological approaches that remove nitrogen at a cost significantly below the current process applied across the U.S.