Manufactured Soil Field Demonstration for Constructing Wetlands to Treat Acid Mine Drainage on Abandoned Minelands

PURPOSE: This technical note provides information on the use of dredged material in manu-facturing substrate for use in constructing wetlands to treat acid mine drainage from abandoned acid coal minelands. BACKGROUND: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for maintaining navigation in all harbors and waterways across the United States. This task requires the dredging of more than 300 million yd3 of sediment from the waterways annually. Places to dispose of these vast amounts of sediment are required. Most dredged material that is not suitable for open-water dis-posal usually is placed in confined disposal facilities (CDFs). Current CDFs are filling up and new CDFs are difficult to locate. In an effort to provide storage capacity for future dredging, dredged material in CDFs is being evaluated for beneficial uses. Cooperative research and devel-opment agreements (CRDAs) have been established with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), Environmental Laboratory (EL) to develop specific innovative technologies and demonstrate the application of these technologies to the reclamation and reuse of dredged material from existing CDFs. CRDAs have been established with Recycled Soil Manufacturing Technology (RSMT), N-Viro International (reconditioned sewage sludge biosol