Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are common contaminants present in wastewater, and determination of their sources is important for their management in the environment. In this study, stormwater loading of PAHs during rainfall periods was evaluated for sewage inflow into a wastewater treatment plant for separate sewer system. To accomplish this, sewage inflow volumes, suspended solid concentrations, and PAH concentrations were measured during eight rainfall events and on two no-rainfall days at the inlet of the plant. Based on a comparison between the rainfall and no-rainfall loading quantified by the measurements, excess PAH loadings with stormwater were evaluated for the rainfall events. The relationship between rainfall intensity and stormwater loading was then used to evaluate long-term stormwater loadings of water and PAHs. Their contributions to the sewage inflow were 0.7 % and 1.0 % for one-year for water and the sum of 16 measured PAHs, respectively. Our measurements and estimates demonstrate that direct stormwater inflow is not a primary source of PAHs to the plant for this separate sewer system.

This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant Numbers 19760372.