| The Florida Department of Environmental Protection/Bureau of Mine Reclamation (FDEP/BMR) has identified phosphorus released from reclaimed mining areas as a potential pollutant in Central Florida’s Upper Peace River Basin. Best Management Practices (BMP), utilized on agricultural and other disturbed lands worldwide, have proven to be effective in the reduction of non-point source pollution. Vegetative filter strips (VFS), areas of dense vegetation designed to reduce transport of sediment and pollutants from surface runoff, have been widely recommended as a BMP by many state and federal agencies.In April 2007, Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) – Bureau of Mine Reclamation (BoMR) and the University of Florida (UF) initiated the preparation of a short term contract to perform maintenance and data collection and processing at the vegetative filter strip (VFS) field research facility created in a previous project at BoMR’s Homeland Field Office site. This project documented maintenance activities, data collection and processing methods and analysis of data for the period of 2007 – April 2008. This data was compared to 2006 data to verify the trapping efficiency of TP, DP, sediments and water. |
