Sediment Control Today!

Stormwater quality, sediment control, nutrient reduction, controlling total suspended solid counts, and other contaminants are some of the reasons it is so important to handle our flows from construction sites, fields, streets, industrial complexes, ports, and more. This is something we all can agree on, but it is amazing at all the differing approaches being used, tried, or tested to implement.?

To put this into perspective, let us review some current approaches to this from municipal, regulatory, specification, and result standpoints.?

1. State 1: DOT’s, Engineers, DNR, AG, municipalities, and more have developed a list of “approved products” or a PAL list which engineers “Cut, copy, and paste” into their designs to steer the contractors where to go to choose which “solution” from this list they would like to implement. All this is done with the intent of establishing a base layer of solutions as their guideline. This is all an incredible way of doing this if the result of?sediment capture or water quality is the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, we live in an industry that has projects awarded based on low bids. As a contractor who “won” the job, now they must figure out the best way to complete this job @ the lowest price to maximize profit.

This has some issues built in from the get-go.?

a. In this scenario, if choosing from a list of “approved solutions”, you are naturally going to choose the one that costs you the least amount money on that project.?

b. Engineers are not designing the solution for that project. Offering a base line of solutions that range in performance, cost, and maintenance needed as the solutions the contractor “chooses” from enables the engineer to get by without designing proper solutions per site. ?

c, Maintenance of solutions. Sediment control devices must have maintenance in play for them to work properly. Enabling solutions to be included in the list as the “Base level” without having maintenance specified opens the door to more gray area on a construction site, or in an engineer's plans. If maintenance is not included, and maintenance is not bid, then maintenance will not get done.?

d. Inspections of solutions are in play but are set up to enable contractors to do the minimum.

For example, engineers inspect their sites (On top of designing, doing municipal work, continuing education, and more.) Following conversations with multiple engineers, it is difficult to be on the site frequently. So, they schedule to visit sites quarterly, or at planned points during construction. This is known to contractors. Contractors also have the luxury of “time to repair” the problems when they are found. So, when a contractor is found to be lacking in sediment control, BMP’s, or more, they have a week to go install the solutions or to repair what they have in place. ?SWPPP plans are monitored by companies the contractor hires. Inspections are done by the SWPPP company, or by the contractor themselves. If the problems are reported, & the enforcement gets executed, then the contractor resolves the issue.?

Engineers refer contractors to an approved list of products via the DOT’s, or their jurisdiction's guidance. Aside from the issues with approved product lists detailed above, this opens the door to even more problems at all levels. In fact, during a lunch and learn with a prominent engineering firm, one of the engineers explained that they simply steer contractors to the DOT's approved list of products. When my associate asked the engineer to provide link, guidelines, or the information that was being provided, it was discovered that the link and information had been invalid for years.

The guidelines, or list, or expectations the contractor has to choose from are being steered to by engineers, cities, DOT's. or other regulatory body seems to be a non-viable system.?

With the list is not in existence anymore, who is liable? The engineer did not choose the solution, the contractor chose a solution from an antiquated list, and the inspectors just know they must verify something is there. Not that the water quality following the solution is acceptable, but simply that something the contractor decided to use is in place.?

2. ?A certain DOT has a unique approach. This approach has been put into place for a bunch of reasons, with unfortunately none being?water quality.?

The approach. Establish a base layer of geotextile that was chosen 8+ years ago. Offer guidance via pictures that offer the most rudimentary way of implementing the use of this chosen geotextile for inlet protection.?

Enforcing of approach. Require all solutions, (even those that do not involve a geotextile, or offer a?differing (innovative) form of geotextile) to have their solutions tested by an organization in another state that was formed to ensure consistency, testing, and guidance for concrete additives, geotextiles, and more. These tests ensure the fabric meets the “set requirements”. They are used to provide one or more of the following functions: separation, reinforcement, filtration, drainage, and liquid barrier. This is an incredible concept; however, it is limiting solutions that are achieving greater water quality results, because they not meeting every point needed for approval from this testing organization. ?

Case and point, a fabric with flow rates 2.5 x’s faster than their standard & that captures 15% more sediment would be denied because its burst strength is not as high. (Regardless of the built in scrim which provides the structural reinforcement needed to achieve the increased water quality goals.)?

Sediment control via below grate inlet protection being rated on a UV scale used for other applications is not relevant. Using the same set ups and parameters for testing that is being used for road fabric seems doomed from the get-go. Yes, road fabric needs more UV, because of their ability to be in the sun all day and from all angles. Drop inlet protection (ie EZ-Catch, EZ-CatchMan, and EZ-Catch Pro) are shaded for a substantial portion of the day, but also have the angles moving constantly (reducing the direct exposure).?

In conversations with implementers of above systems, approvers of above systems, & those frustrated with the above systems, it gets even more complicated. Hearing responses such as, ?

1. “This is what I was left with.,” (previous tenant of approved product list)?
2. “I have 2 days to address this, then I have to handle all the other fires on my table”, (I do not have time for this)?*This is unfortunately understandable as these professional's responsibilities are continuously expanded.
3. “We are looking for consistency from systems other DOT’s are using”, (let us make things easier)?

It becomes clearer why many sides are getting frustrated.?

We need to applaud all the efforts at having consistency in construction, water quality, sediment control, stormwater management and more. We cannot applaud the continued efforts at shifting who is accountable for cleaner water. Engineer, Municipality, DNR, Contractor, Public??

What we can do is use the framework and intent at establishing guidelines and get input from all sides. Engineering, Municipal, State, DNR, Contractor, Laborers, and Inspectors.

Have conversations about where we are trying to get, and the most efficient way to get there.

Then conversations on long term costs v. up front price are much more fruitful. Maintenance becomes something dealt with during the bidding process to avoid some of the driving forces trying to eliminate this crucial piece.

Please note that water quality, stormwater management, underground infrastructure, & sediment control are my passions. The solutions are here. We all know we need to step up. Please reach out if you have any questions, comments, counters, or disagreements. This is the only way we can go forward.?

-Corydon Coppola, CPESC