A study of the contaminated banks of the Mahoning River, Northeastern Ohio, USA: characterization of the contaminated bank sediments and river water–groundwater interactions

Abstract

The Mahoning River is one of the five most contaminated rivers in the U.S. This study characterized the contaminated sediments in the river banks and investigated the hydraulic interconnection between shallow aquifer in the banks with the river water. The study was conducted along the most polluted section of the river, which is 50-km long, using over 50 monitoring wells. The characterization part of the study investigated the sedimentology, hydraulic conductivity, and spatial distribution of the contaminated sediments. Results of the characterization revealed that the contaminated sediments consist of fine-grained sand, silt, mud, and clay. The spatial distribution of the contaminated sediment is heterogeneous and positively correlates with the hydraulic conductivity values, i.e., the greatest contamination occurs in high conductivity areas. Hydraulic conductivity was determined by the Hazen formula using 82 sediment samples. Bioremediation, which is one of the remedial options considered for the banks, is found to be hydraulically feasible because of sufficient hydraulic conductivity values (≥10−4 cm/s) that ensure reasonable rates of nutrient delivery. Monitoring of water levels in the river and groundwater for a 10-month period shows that flow occurs from the river to groundwater and vice versa. The exchange of flow is influenced by rainfall. Flow of groundwater to the river will continually transport the dissolved contaminants in groundwater to the river. Therefore, findings of this study show that one of the remedial options that proposes dredging of channel sediments and permits no action for bank sediments cannot be chosen due to river water–groundwater interactions.