Soil and Waste Disposal Soils 480 and 680
Instructor: Frank Casey
Contact information: 123 Walster Hall, Phone 231-8577, email francis.casey@ndsu.edu
Office hours: By appointment.
Location and meeting time of class: Civil & Industrial Engineering room 106: 9:30 a.m. – 10:20 a.m. Tuesday and Thursday
Grading:
480: Exam 1 (21%) + Exam 2 (21%) + Final (34%) + Assignments (24%) = 100%
680: Exam 1 (20%) + Exam 2 (20%) + Final (30%) + Assignments (20%) + Project (10%) = 100%
Disabilities:
Any student with disabilities, or others who need special accommodations in this class, are invited to share their concerns or requests with the instructor as soon as possible.
Academic Dishonesty/Plagiarism:
Work in this course must adhere to the Code of Academic Responsibility and Conduct as cited in SECTION 335: CODE OF ACADEMIC RESPONSIBILITY AND CONDUCT
Cheating: If a student cheats on an assignment or exam of this class, then that student will receive a failing grade for that assignment or exam.
Course Objective:
The Objective of this class is to provide an overview of industrial waste disposal concepts and of soil’s interactions with industrial wastes. Once we form a basic understanding of the physical, chemical and organic characteristics of soil we can then begin to understand the interactions of soil with waste and the fate and transport of waste in soils. These fundamental interactions will be used as the basis for developing and understanding waste disposal on soils.
Course Approach:
The focus of this course will be on the chemical and mathematical concepts, which will be used extensively. At times computers will be used, mainly advanced spreadsheet calculations, to understand waste fate and transport and to make predictions.
A Note to the Students:
I will do my best to take apparently complex concepts and break them into their simplest components, then build them up again so that you can have a better understanding of these concepts. This is my first time teaching this course and I am developing the curriculum from scratch so please bear with me as I learn with you, and do not hesitate to interject your concerns.
Optional Textbook:
There was not one main text that covered the topics that I wanted to cover in this course. I will be using four textbook sources throughout the year, as well as my own sources. I have ordered the text Pepper, Gerba and Brusseau. 1996. Pollution Science. ISBN 0-12-550660-0, which is used extensively, but not exclusively. You may purchase this optional book at Varsity Mart.
Syllabus:
The detailed syllabus below is tentative and subject to change as the curriculum of this course develops. We may need to spend less or more time on certain subjects and thus our schedule may need to be amended.

Topic and Source

Links of interest and Homework

Dates and notes

Waste and Pollution from the Perspective of Soil Science

1   Waste and Pollution
1.1   Definitions
1.2   Environmentalism
1.3   Pollution detection and conversions
1.4   Soil and the environment.
1.5   What's so special about soil anyhow?

EPA glossary
Soil Science glossary: terms and conversion factors

Jan 10
Jan 12

How do we treat our waste?
- Pepper, Gerba and Brusseau. 1996. Pollution Science. Chapters 10 and 18.

2       Waste & waste disposal concepts
2.1  Waste classification
2.2   Landfills
2.3   Wastewater Treatment.
2.4   Land farming.
2.5   Deep-Well Injection of Liquid Wastes.
2.6   Incineration
2.7  Immobilization

Jan 17

Some basic soil physical, biological and chemicals properties.
- Pepper, Gerba and Brusseau. 1996. Pollution Science. Chapter 2.
- Hillel. 2004. Introduction to Environmental Soil Physics. Chapter 6.

3       Abiotic Characteristics of Soil:
3.1   The Soi. – Definition of soil and the vadose zone
3.2   Solid Phase
3.2.1  Soil texture, structure, porosity, bulk density, particle density
3.2.2  Organic Matter
3.2.3  Soil horizonation and color
3.2.4  pH
3.2.5  Cation exchange
3.3   Gaseous Phase.
3.3.1  Constituents of Soil Atmosphere
3.3.2  Availability of Oxygen
3.3.3  Redox reactions
3.4   Liquid Phase
3.4.1  Water properties
3.4.2  Water content – gravimetric and volumetric
3.4.3  Soil water potential
3.4.4  Soil moisture characteristic curve

- Calculating bulk density, porosity, and gravimetric and volumetric water content.
- Determining water potential.
- Water characteristic curve functions.

Water retention curve MSexcel file

Homework 1 due February 9

Jan 19
Jan 24
Jan 26
Jan 31
Feb 2

Understanding soil on the landscape.
http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/

4       Soil Survey
4.1   Using soil survey in your planning decisions.

Using the soil survey to help make waste disposal decisions.

Links of interest:
http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/
http://soildatamart.nrcs.usda.gov/
http://soils.usda.gov/
http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/efotg/

Mar 30
Apr 4

Waste interactions with soils.
- Weiner.  2000. Applications of Environmental Chemistry. Chapters 2, 4, & 5.

5       Chemical Processes Affecting Contaminant Fate and Transport in Soil and Water:
5.1   Pollutant Solubility and Volatility.
5.2   Ideal gas law
5.3   Vapor pressure
5.4   Raoult's law
5.5   Henry's law
5.6   Cation Exchange/Organic matter
5.6.1               Sorption (Retention) of pollutants
5.6.1.1      Equilibrium sorption
5.6.1.2      Kinetics of adsorption
5.7   Phase Distributions of Pollutants: three and four phase distributions
5.8   Degradation/ Transformation

- Calculating equilibrium concentrations in systems two, three, and four phases using mass balance approach.
- Equilibrium sorption of solute to soil for Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms.
- Calculating kinetic sorption.
- Calculating chemical half-lives.

Feb 14
Feb 16
Feb 21
Feb 23
Feb 28
Mar 2
Mar 7
Mar 9
Mar 21
Mar 23
Mar 28
Mar 30
Apr 4

How is waste transport in soils?
- Hillel. 2004. Introduction to Environmental Soil Physics. Chapter 7 and 8.
- Pepper, Gerba and Brusseau. 1996. Pollution Science. Chapter 15.

6       Physical Processes Affecting Contaminant Fate and Transport in Soil and Water:
6.1   Soil water potential
6.2   Soil moisture characteristic curve
6.3   Movement of Water in Soil and Groundwater.
6.3.1  Saturated water movement
6.3.2  Unsaturated water movement
6.4   Movement of Contaminants in Soil and Groundwater.
6.4.1  Mechanisms of movement – diffusion, dispersion, and advection
6.5   Movement of waste adsorbed to the soil.

- Darcy's law and determining hydraulic conductivity.
- Richard's equation for unsaturated water transfer
.- The convective dispersive equation predicting pollutant transport.
- Universal soil loss equation

Apr 6
Apr 11
Apr 13
Apr 18
Apr 20
Apr 25

How do we understand and begin to interpret soil and waste measurements?
- Conklin. 2004. Field Sampling: Principles and Practices in Environmental Analysis. Chapter 6
- Pepper, Gerba and Brusseau. 1996. Pollution Science. Chapter 8.

7       Statistical concepts for waste in the environment.
7.1   Descriptive Measures for Two populations distributions
7.2   Estimates of Sample Numbers.
7.3   Regression Analysis.

Visualizing data with various graphs.
Statistical functions in excel.

Apr 27
May 2
May 7