Operation and Maintenance Assessment for Structural Stormwater BMPs

Abstract

The American Society of Civil and Engineers (ASCE) recent reporting on the environmental, economic, and social impacts associated with aging infrastructure has reinforced the need for proper operation and maintenance practices in order to promote sustainability and resilience of United States infrastructure systems. Essential to the performance of the nation’s water resources infrastructure are stormwater best management practices (BMPs). ASCE/EWRI has assembled a Stormwater BMP Maintenance Task Committee to assess and advance the current state of knowledge pertaining to the operation and maintenance of structural BMPs. Structural BMPs encompassed by the scope of this Task Committee include extended detention basins, wet ponds, stormwater wetlands, sand filters, bio-retention practices, vegetated filter strips, and wet/dry swales. The BMP Maintenance Task Committee has undertaken a detailed literature review and developed a national survey to assess the effectiveness of current BMP operation and maintenance practices throughout the United States. This paper summarizes the results of the Task Committee literature review and describes the ongoing survey effort. The maintenance survey results are to be evaluated with regard to BMP type, regional influence, and class of asset manager. The survey results and literature review will assist in making recommendations to enhance design methodologies to allow for efficient, regular, and effective maintenance and to provide contractors and owners with cost effective techniques to manage their stormwater infrastructure. This paper summarizes the progress to date of the Stormwater BMP Maintenance Task Committee’s effort to develop detailed operation and maintenance protocols for structural BMPs.