In October of last year, the EPA began its first experiment with pervious pavement, with the completion of a 43,000 square-foot parking lot for its environmental laboratory in Edison, NJ. According to the EPA, the main goals of installing this parking lot are to reduce stormwater runoff and study the effectiveness of three different types of permeable surfaces.

Here is a demonstration of the porous concrete section of the parking lot:

The parking lot replaced and reused concrete from the nearly 300,000 square-foot parking lot previously used in Edison. Now, the lot has 28 parking spaces of interlocking concrete paver blocks, 41 spaces of porous concrete and 28 spaces of porous asphalt.

Currently, the parking lot is in regular use and a portion of the stormwater is being collected through pipes underneath the pavement. This allows the EPA to measure and test how well the three surfaces let water pass through, filter contaminants out and reduce flow of stormwater to receiving waters.