May. The center is located at the City of Denton Pecan Creek Wastewater Management Plant. Each experimental stream is 16 feet long and two feet wide. To mimic real world conditions, the streams were built with a gravel substrate, and pools were placed at the end of each stream segment.
Water is supplied by the wastewater plant.
Wastewaters that flow through the facility will be rout routed back to the treatment plant to prevent possible contamination. Throughout the summer of 2000, LaPoint and colleagues have been using this site to study how pollutants affect aquatic life in the surface waters. The chemicals being tested in this initial study are surfactants and cadmium. In the future, LaPoint anticipates that this facility may be useful in investigating the role of invertebrates in bioaccumulating pollutants bound in sediments, the role of nutrients in pollutant transport in streams, and many related topics. The site may also be useful in coping with emerging pollutants of concern like MTBE and atrazine, and may also be useful in assessing the performance of various designs of wastewater treatment plants.