Testing Sampling Efficiencies of Suction Lysimeters in Laboratory Scale Leaching Bed Systems

Onsite wastewater treatment systems are used widely in rural areas of Canada. Suction lysimeters are popular soil water samplers used in the soil vadose zone that has demonstrated that they can successfully detect chemical containments in leaching bed systems. However, limited research has been made a directly comparison on different types of suction lysimeters’ sampling abilities. Completed research used pilot soil columns to simulate two commonly used leaching bed systems in Ontario. The results showed that the suction lysimeters with pore sizes ranging from 1.3 to 6.0 microns and under continuous and discontinuous operating methods were all able to produced sample results which were representative of the true performance conditions in the leaching beds with the exception of COD and phosphorus. For these later two elements, the Series 1900 ceramic lysimeters with the larger pore size and larger sampling area showed results more consistent with the control values.