Valuable stormwater assets covered by inspections and maintenance program
By Scott Kirby, C.E.T.
Stormceptor units inspected for conformance to
the recommended assembly instructions.
Pollution-free surface water is
becoming a valuable commodity
as many North American
communities struggle with
drinking water and wastewater challenges.
Less than 1% of the water on
Earth is readily accessible for
use by human beings. Non-point
source pollution carried by
stormwater may account for 80
percent of the degradation in
North America’s freshwater
lakes and streams.
Solutions to the struggle for
safe supplies of fresh water to
guarantee sustainable reserves
for future generations are
becoming dependent upon technology,
such as oil-sediment separators,
and legislation. Ontario’s
Sustainable Water and Sewage
Systems Act 2002 and the US
Clean Water Act are the kinds of
legislation that call for technology
that works.
Ontario’s Sustainable Water
and Sewage Systems Act, 2002
will help to ensure clean, safe
drinking water for Ontario residents
by making it mandatory
for municipalities to assess and
recover the full amount of water
and sewer services. Municipalities
now have buried infrastructure that
must be accounted for and assessed as
assets. Every oil-sediment separator
system is an element of a municipality’s
buried wealth and must be properly
maintained to sustain that wealth
and function as designed to protect the
environment.
Legislation such as the Clean Water
Act in the USA prohibits any facility
from discharging “pollutants” through
a “point source” into a “water of the
United States” unless they have an
NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System) permit. The permit
would contain limits on what can
be discharged, monitoring and reporting
requirements, and other provisions
to ensure that the discharge does not
hurt water quality or people's health. In
essence, the permit translates general
requirements of the Clean Water Act
into specific provisions tailored to the
operations of each facility discharging
pollutants. Stormceptor units are often
used to meet the provisions of this legislation
and the permitting.
Stormceptors are engineered
stormwater treatment structures that
remove oil and fine sediment from
storm runoff. Comprised of a circular
precast concrete tank and fibreglass
partition, they replace maintenance
holes in storm sewers. In Ontario
alone, there are more than 3,100 of
these units working every time there is
a storm event or major snowmelt.
Quality Assurance Program
To ensure long-term environmental
protection, any oil-sediment removal
system must be serviced. The need for
servicing is determined through frequent
inspection of the units; and servicing
determined by the depth of sediment
and oil in the structure.
The Hanson Quality Assurance
Program (QAP) provides owners with
a total of four inspections, or one
inspection and one silt service, and
written reports over the first three
years of ownership. The program
reminds owners that the unit was
installed to comply with environmental
provisions of a site plan or subdivision
agreement and that a Stormceptor
must continue to receive service so
that it continues to function as
designed.
After each unit is installed, a
Hanson representative visits the site to
inspect the unit for conformance to the
recommended assembly instructions.
If the unit has met the representative’s
recommendations, a
Stormceptor Details Report
would then be issued to the
owner, consulting engineer and
the local regulating agency, identifying
the location of the unit
(using Global Positioning
System coordinates), servicing
recommendations, and notes that
the unit had been properly
assembled. Any deficiencies
would be noted and brought to
the attention of the contractor for
rectification.
Approximately six months
after this report is filed, the service
package comes into effect. A
budget has been allocated to
each unit to ensure that the unit
is inspected and/or serviced
when re-quired. The service
package is managed on behalf of
Hanson by Minotaur Guardian
Services Ltd. (MGS). MGS provides
a combination of inspections and
servicing depending on the budget
available after the first inspection of a
unit, and works with owners to educate
them about maintenance. MGS provides
field reports showing existing
levels of oils and particulate, the percentage
capacity left in a unit, and a
recommended course of action.
Inspection reports and certificates of
service may be delivered automatically
to the Ontario Ministry of the
Environment, the local conservation
authority and the municipality at the
owner’s request.
If a unit is not inspected regularly, it
is difficult to know when servicing is
required. If a unit isn’t serviced, it may
eventually cease to perform the environmental
function for which it was
specified, resulting in risk of a discharge
and subsequent liabilities.
Inspections are a cost-effective preventative
measure that can reduce the risk
of discharge of pollutants in the case of
an unreported diesel fuel spill or
engine oil dumped into a catch basin.
An inspection every six months following
the initial pump out, for a minimum
of two years, would provide the
necessary data to establish a maintenance program based on need.
Leasing arrangements are now
available for three, five, or seven-year
terms without tying up cash resources.
The lease option includes flexible
start-up dates, a maintenance service
package for the term of the lease, and
third party care of assets with less
chance for environmental mishaps.
Additional assets may be added to the
lease as required, and at the end of the
lease the lessee owns the Stormceptor
unit.
This new way of acquiring
Stormceptors means that infrastructure
costs are moved to additional rent
where customers see an immediate
savings in taxes and budgeted expenditures.
The impact of budget overruns is
significantly reduced and the responsibility
and obligation for inspection and
sediment removal from the unit is
removed. With the Minotaur maintenance
program included in the lease,
customers can enjoy the convenience
of receiving the maintenance services
needed from one source. Once funding
issues are removed through the lease
option, projects should move ahead
more quickly.
The maintenance program ensures
that owners of buried infrastructure
assets enjoy maximum return on their
investment. North American communities
benefit because progressive legislation
combined with technology
provide the solutions to the challenges
presented by both non-point and point
source pollution.
Scott Kirby is Stormceptor Technical
Representative for Hanson Pipe &
Products Canada, Inc., e-mail skirby@hansonpipe.ca.
See our home page on how to order your subscription. We regret we can
only accept orders from Canada and the United States.
