Highway sound barriers might also be pollution barriers
January 5, 2010

Research conducted by NOAA and the EPA suggests that highway sound barriers might also act as pollution barriers, trapping vehicle exhaust and other pollutants in and around the roadway, rather than letting them migrate to nearby residential and commercial areas. What would be interesting to discover is whether this causes higher levels of concentrated pollution in the stormwater runoff captured from within these barrier-enclosed highways. Since much stormwater is returned untreated to rivers and streams, the concentration of pollutants like oil and soot (which can be captured by rainfall) near roadways bounded by barriers might be higher than from most other stormwater, and may contribute to certain kinds of unanticipated environmental damage.

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January 2010
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last revised January 2010