Recent Developments in Oil Retaining Porous Pavements

The use of pervious pavements is an important technique used for source control in Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) which allows water to infiltrate into hard surfaces and then slowly releases it to either a drainage outlet or into the ground. They also remove low levels of pollution from the water by filtration and also by biodegradation of hydrocarbons which are adsorbed to materials within the construction. Current pervious pavement systems are not used
in locations where the risk of pollution occurring is high or, if they would allow the infiltration of water into the ground, where groundwater protection is a concern. This paper describes the development and initial trials of two versions of an oil interceptor system which has been incorporated within pervious surface construction. Experiments were undertaken to assess how
the system retained pollutants under simulated worse credible pollution and rainfall events and to compare the performance of a traditionally constructed design with the new system. The results demonstrated that both direct infiltration devices, constructed on site from traditional materials and geo-membrane, and systems designed to be used as pre-fabricated units based on
state of the art storage elements can effectively contain hydrocarbons.