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For developers, stormwater runoff presents a unique set of challenges. Careful management is essential to protect not only the site and surrounding property, but also to safeguard the environment, including wetlands, streams, rivers, and lakes
Failure to properly recognize the importance of stormwater management can cause consequences that are expensive at best and dangerous at worst. You need a team that understands this.
At Ballentine Associates, the vast depth of our engineers’ experience, coupled with clear vision and expertise, allows us to develop a stormwater strategy specifically for your project. We invite you to discover how we add value to every project we work with, dedicated to managing even the smallest detail. Contact us and tell us about your project.
But before we delve into the importance of stormwater management, let’s take a closer look at what it is. Then, we’ll explore how it protects your site and the environment.
What Is Stormwater Management?
When a site is developed with impervious cover such as buildings, parking lots, sidewalks, and other hard surfaces, rainwater runs off of the site at a higher rate and volume than it did when the site was in its natural state. The stormwater runoff from a developed site also contains harmful nutrients and pollutants. Stormwater management is necessary to help clean the runoff and reduce its volume and rate.
The Importance of Stormwater Management
Stormwater Management is critical because it helps protect the site and surrounding areas from erosion, flooding, and pollution from things like oil, high concentrations of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and sediments. These pollutants can be carried downstream and are harmful to aquatic life. Flooding can cause significant damage to buildings and infrastructure.
How Does Stormwater Management Protect a Site?
As we mentioned earlier, the key focus behind stormwater management is to protect land, prevent flooding, maintain safety for both people and property, and minimize the possibility of polluting lakes and rivers. A proper Stormwater Management system will provide the following protections to meet these goals and comply with the regulations:
- Reduce runoff volume: This involves getting some of the runoff to infiltrate back into the soil and using plants to soak up and vaporize some of the runoff, with the goal of matching the volume of runoff that was present before the development.
- Reducing runoff rate: This involves slowing the water down before it’s released from the site to better match the runoff rates that were present before the development.
- Pollutant removal: This involves cleaning the water by removing nutrients and small soil particles from it before it leaves the site.
What Strategies Are Used to Create a Stormwater Management System?
How Do Civil Engineers Help Plan for a Stormwater Management System?
Civil engineers, like our professional, experienced team at Ballentine Associates, prepare, plan and present solutions to the challenges you face on your development project. We help by determining the best mitigation strategies for your project, taking into account the results of our detailed pre- and post-development evaluations and calculations.
We use our decades of experience and carefully follow the best practices outlined by the NC Department of Environmental Quality to select, design, and model a set of Stormwater Control Measures (SCM’s) that are most appropriate for your project.
Some of these include:
- Infiltration systems
- Wet and dry detention ponds
- Permeable pavement
- Sand filters
- Stormwater Wetlands
- Bioretention cells
- Sand filters
- Rainwater Harvesting Systems
- Level spreader-filter strip
- Disconnected impervious surfaces
- Treatment swales
You Can Trust Ballentine Associates to Manage the Details of Your Stormwater Management System
You’ve invested a lot in your project, and failure to properly manage stormwater can lead to significant problems on the site and downstream of the site, and it can leave you out of regulatory compliance.
Our experienced engineers take a proactive approach to projects. They take the time to understand the challenges and opportunities each site presents, and they work diligently to integrate the desired project program into the site, with the goal of creating a wonderful and functional place.
Since 1979, our service to counties throughout central North Carolina reflects our dedication to projects of various sizes. Through the decades, we have never compromised our integrity, our service, and our attention to detail. We want to be more than merely a vendor; we are invested in your success.
We’d like to learn more about your project. Contact us to start the conversation.
Key Takeaways
- A proper Stormwater Management Plan is essential for developers to prevent flooding, property damage, and environmental pollution in lakes and rivers.
- Runoff from impervious surfaces like roofs, concrete, and asphalt moves faster than natural water flow, requiring careful management.
- Effective stormwater management systems use SCM’s like detention/retention ponds, permeable pavement systems, infiltration trenches, stormwater wetlands, pollutant filters, and bioretention cells to protect both sites and surrounding ecosystems.
- Ballentine Associates has provided stormwater management and civil engineering services across central North Carolina since 1979.
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Sources:
Environmental Protection Agency, “Stormwater Planning,” https://www.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater-planning
Texas State University, “Stormwater 101,” https://www.txst.edu/stormwater/stormwater-awareness/stormwater-101.html
University of Michigan – Dearborn, “Why Is Stormwater Management Important?” https://umdearborn.edu/environmental-health-and-safety/environmental-protection/storm-water/why-storm-water-management
University of Nebraska, “What Is Stormwater Management and Why is It Important?” https://ehs.unl.edu/sites/unl.edu.business-and-finance.university-operations.ehs/files/media/file/g2238-2014.pdf
