API Publ 4672

Treatment wetlands are becoming widely used for cleansing some classes of wastewater effluents. Although the use of treatment wetlands is well established for wastewater categories such as municipal waste, stormwater, agricultural wastewater, and acid mine drainage water, their use in treating a variety of industrial wastewaters is less well developed. Constructed treatment wetlands hold considerable promise for managing some wastewaters generated by the petroleum industry. Several large-scale wetland projects currently exist at oil refineries, and numerous pilot studies of constructed treatment wetlands have been conducted at terminals, gas and oil extraction and pumping stations, and refineries. This report summarizes current information about the use of treatment wetlands for managing petroleum industry wastewaters and also presents background information on the general performance, design, and operation of treatment wetlands based on experience with a variety of wastewater types.