Here are a few examples of extruded asphalt berms or curbs:
Presentation: David Jenkins
This berm keeps clean water from draining off the asphalt to the right into the work area to the left. If the clean water was allowed into the work area, the contractor would have much more dirty water to deal with.
Presentation: David Jenkins
This is another example of using asphalt to keep clean runoff from entering the work area.
Presentation: David Jenkins
In this project, we are removing and replacing the asphalt surface on the left. The asphalt curb is used to keep the dirty runoff on the right from entering the work area. Candlesticks are used to delineate the project boundary and keep vehicles from driving over the berm.
We use extruded asphalt berms extensively to contain and direct site water to grass infield areas and to keep clean offsite water from entering the project. When the project is completed, the asphalt is removed and hauled to a batch plant for recycle.
Here is an an example of extruded asphalt curbing being used as a barrier to keep storm water out of the construction area, on the left, and keep site water from flowing outside the project, to the right.
In this case, the non-project water is dirtier because the paving is broken up and equipment is driving through muddy areas. The object of the construction project is to grind existing, poor, asphalt, rebuild the base using the ground asphalt, then lay new asphalt over the top.
This is being done in phases to keep from opening up too much area as this work is being done in winter.
I learned about water berms from a contractor several years ago. We hired them to reconstruct an old parking lot. The lot was all paved and most of it was hilly. I require extruded asphalt curbing be used to keep clean water out and dirty water inside the project. The contractor asked me if they could use water-filled berms instead. I wanted to see how they worked and agreed. They worked great so we have added this to our BMP toolbox. These are heavy PVC tubes that can be reused many times, if not abused. I can’t remember where they got these but similar ones are used in spill control. One of the suppliers I know of is: NEWPIG.COM.
When we rebuilt this road, we had the contractor blade the gravel base course into a berm along the edge. This created a berm to project the bare area on the left from erosion caused by runoff from the roadway.
The gravel berm was bladed smooth just before installing a curb along the edge of the road. The bare soil was hydroseeded with bonded fiber matrix.
By using the gravel in this way, we avoided installing silt fence, preventing the soil disturbance that causes and keeping a bunch of plastic out of the landfill at the end of the project.
There is a difference between the paper erosion plan and what the project looks like in the field. I wrote up the plan to manage water from offsite. Now that I am looking at the area, I might need to re-think the plan. Erosion control adaptive management is what makes the plan come to fruition. Video: David Jenkins-Sheetflow
This video gives an example of adaptive management for perimeter erosion control BMPs.
Transcript:
This is our staging area for our project we are going to be starting up back over in here on the other side of a stormwater swale. We have to access the site through another owner’s property and they have allowed us to have this staging area.
My plan was to have an extruded asphalt curb along this edge to take all the stormwater running off the parking lot coming this way and keep it out of the staging area, but that’s going to concentrate all the water from back up to the left into one location there down by the equipment.
Another BMP we’re using is compost socks on the edge of the swale to take any sheet flow from the staging area here and spread it out before it goes into the swale. Here are the compost socks and a bunch more here waiting for installation.
The idea of concentrating all the water and dumping it into the swale in one spot down here, maybe its better with the compost sock to just let everything just sheet flow and spread out against the sock and then dribble in, and actually in this area its not going right into the swale its going into some landscape across the pathway and then into the swale so maybe it’s a combination.
Actually, come to think of it, maybe on this end of the project no curbing and back over in here we put curbing in. This is all pretty protected so you know, this is adaptive management, this is how these things go you do the erosion plan write it up on a plan sheet and then you walk the site and see how things are in reality and should be willing to change.
Okay from here now from this pathway over we are going right into the swale so maybe we start the curbing maybe off this island. You see were gong into the swale now and this is going to be the most intensively used area for staging so maybe we start with a short, extruded asphalt curb over there and let everything else sheetflow back in here.
Okay got to think on this.
Comments Off on Adaptive Management-Perimeter BMPs
I can’t get away from it. It doesn’t matter where I go, I always see some type of construction erosion issue. I went to visit relatives in Portland, Maine, flying in and out of Boston Logan International. In the terminal, waiting for my flight back home, I saw a construction project on the ramp; it had rained a few says before, hard. Obviously, the stockpile had not been covered before the storm and sediment washed off the pile into the drain.
I work at an airport that operates under strict turbidity
effluent limits; here is how we do this kind of work:
(1) rarely do we allow stockpiles on the ramp because we rarely
reuse the excavated material (it is either contaminated, unsuitable or doesn’t
meet current FAA requirements); it is direct loaded into trucks and hauled off.
When we do stockpile, we place dirt on plastic and cover it with plastic, using
lots of sand bags to secure it from jet blast and wind.
(2) work areas are always isolated so there is no runoff from
the site. Normally, we use four-inch extruded asphalt curbing along the base of
the jersey barriers. Rolled hot mix asphalt (HMA) is used at the entrance point
so water is contained but vehicles can access the site. Water that builds up inside the curbing is
pumped back into the excavation if clean, or a tank if contaminated.
I should have
mentioned that we also have strict sediment trackout requirements: no visible
sediment leaves the site at any time.
This is both because of the effluent limits and for safety reasons; dirt
and debris that gets sucked up into a jet engine is damaging and possibly
deadly.
Lastly, I am
not casting aspersions on the folks at Logan; I don’t know their situation,
permits, drainage system, or tolerance for risk. Because of my situation, I have low risk tolerance
for potential non-compliance with our permit and I notice when something would
cause me grief at my airport.
