The dreary days of winter have passed and the cold wet of February is replaced with flowers and buzzing bees of June. The comfort of summertime makes it easy to forget about your stormwater facility. Really, no one wants to think about a stormwater facility failing during a storm, but if you own one, now is the time to prepare. If you have already received a correction letter because your facility needs repair, the clock is ticking.
Stormwater facilities can come in many forms, and each has its own maintenance requirements. Yet they all have one thing in common: they require your maintenance attention. The maintenance these facilities require can range from simple wear and tear items, basic mowing, to full repairs and pipe replacements. The best time to do corrective repairs and maintenance is during the dry summer months. If you neglect your stormwater facility, you could be subject to enforcement actions by the County or City. Additionally, you risk letting your facility fall into such disrepair that it may fail, leaving you to fix the facility under urgent circumstances, in the worst weather, and unfortunately, the highest cost.
So, why summer? It is the best time as the ground has dried and is easier to work to replace and repair items than in wet conditions. Additionally, vegetation grows in the summer and is dormant in the winter, so if anything needs replacing, plants need time to establish good roots before the dormant season. This gives the new vegetation the best chance to survive.
What is good maintenance? What does that even mean? Where is an owner to start?
A good first start for owners of stormwater facilities is to review information provided by the local water quality agencies at the SW Washington Stormwater Partners Website (https://www.stormwaterpartners.com/). It is a website packed with information about all things water quality and stormwater facility maintenance related. Unfortunately, many may find the huge amount of information it contains to be hard to take in or interpret. Knowing this, MacKay Sposito (http://www.mackaysposito.com/storm-facilities), has established a stormwater maintenance service line to help both to educate and provide on-the-ground services for owners of stormwater facilities.
While understanding what a stormwater facility needs may seem daunting, MacKay Sposito offers to help equip owners so they can make informed decisions. No matter if the owner hires the MacKay Sposito team to do the actual work or not, MacKay Sposito will offer up-front information.
One of the goals of MacKay Sposito staff is to act as a partner with the stormwater facility owner to help increase knowledge about the asset they own; how it functions, what it needs to keep it in good condition, and what types of repairs should be made. Ensuring owners understand what the facility is and make informed decisions is really important to keep stormwater facilities working, and keeping unintended damage from happening.
Summer is the time to act, prepare, and repair your stormwater facility for winter. Remember that MacKay Sposito and its team of business partners are available to help, whether that be to help you understand what you have, provide inspections and monitoring, doing the on the ground services for one time repairs, or ongoing long term maintenance.
MacKay Sposito at a glance.
A local consulting firm that provides: surveying, planning, civil engineering, landscape architecture, UAV, construction management, and stormwater facility maintenance and repair. Get in touch with us at 360-695-3411
This is part one of a three-part series about stormwater facility management from MacKay Sposito.
(360) 735-4497