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Desert Research Unit (DRU)

In 1978, the U.S. Office of Surface Mining established the Mine Land Reclamation Center (MLRC) at OALS. This built on existing capacity in OALS in economic botany, the ability to identify plant material that could be used to stabilize and reclaim mine spoil in arid environments. It also served to leverage capacity that existed elsewhere in CALS, water harvesting in particular, that would allow OALS to develop a comprehensive capability to work on the daunting tasks of remediating environmental disturbance in rural arid environments, and also augmenting water supplies in urban and rural areas.

This has led to the current activities of the Desert Research Unit (DRU), devoted to study of (1) constructed wetlands for wastewater and storm water treatment, (2) presence and fate of emerging contaminants in arid environments, (3) revegetation of disturbed areas such as Arizona farmlands that have been retired for water rights and (4) techniques for improving water conservation. DRU operates the Constructed Ecosystems Research Facility (CERF) for Pima County Department of Wastewater Management. The facility conducts research on water quality changes during wetland treatment with a current focus on the fate of emerging contaminants, including endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs). Other areas of research include pathogen removal, transformation of organics, and evaluation of long-term water quality trends.

Several other DRU projects are conducted jointly with the Departments of Chemical and Environmental Engineering; Soil, Water and Environmental Science (SWES), Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering (ABE), and the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Laboratory in Denver. These projects focus on the presence and fate of EDCs and other emerging contaminants in arid environments. Two projects are examining biosolids and receiving soils for presence of endocrine disruption activity. A third project, developed in cooperation with the National Science Foundation's Water Quality Center at the University of Arizona, is looking at the fate of EDCs in wastewater, municipal effluent, and stormwater runoff. The DRU also is working with SWES and ABE on issues related to the quality of irrigation water.

In addition to these water quality programs, DRU is conducting a two-year study to evaluate the efficacy of "smart" irrigation control devices for reducing water usage in residential landscape irrigation systems.

Large-scale revegetation research activities include program sponsorships from Duke Energy North America and Sempra Energy. This made possible expanded cooperation with Renewable Natural Resources (RNR) and the support of a Ph.D student