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A key issue concerning environmental impacts from cooling tower operations is the interception of drift by vegetation and the efficiency of plants in retaining the residue scavenged from the atmosphere. Chromated drift water, typical of the cooling towers of the department of energy's uranium enrichment facilities at oak ridge, tennessee, was prepared using radiolabelled chromium. A portable aerosol generator was used to produce a spectrum of droplets with diameters characteristic of mechanical draft cooling towers using state-of-the-art drift eliminators. Efficiency of interception by foliage varied according to leaf morphology with yellow poplar seedling intercepting 72 degrees of the deposition mass in contrast to 45 degrees by loblolly pine and 24 degrees by fescue grass. Retention patterns of intercepted deposition consisted of a short time component and a long-time component. Retention times, estimated from regression equation of the long component, indicated that drift contamination from any deposition event concentration of drift on vegetation at any distance remains relatively constant, with losses from weathering being compensated by chronic deposition.
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