You built the BMP, now what? Inspections, DEQ reporting, and tracking after installation
As the calls for green infrastructure and resiliency increase, many municipalities are turning to BMPs. DEQ provides oversight for design specifications, but once the BMP is constructed, it falls on local municipalities to inspect, maintain, and report these BMPs as a part of their MS4 permitting. As DEQ rolls out the latest update to their BMP warehouse, municipalities are having to revamp their approach to managing BMPs. In this presentation, we will go through a case study of the City of Chesapeake where we will highlight the challenges of retrofitting an inspection program for over 1,600 existing BMPs. Some of these BMPs date back to the early 1990s and many of the original data is lost to the file cabinets of time as plan sets are misplaced over the years. Other BMPs have changed hands multiple times over the years. We will walk through identifying the gaps in the city’s BMP management program and then their response to those gaps. We will focus on the update to the city’s BMP Inspection Manual. This will include a review of the backend data process to showcase the city’s potential for growth and amendment to their BMP program as well as the city’s response to the updated DEQ guidelines. We will also highlight the efforts the City of Chesapeake to modernize their inspection process through Field Apps. At the conclusion of this presentation, attendees will understand the benefits of a well thought out BMP inspection plan, have the roadmap to successfully develop proper inspection protocols, and the many ways to implement those inspection procedures.
Author Bio
McKenzie White is a Senior Staff Engineer with Brown and Caldwell working out of Virginia Beach, VA. She primarily works in stormwater design, permitting, and modeling as well as stream restoration, coastal resiliency, and wind / wave dynamic modeling. She splits her time in the office and in the field, running sampling efforts and inspection efforts throughout Virginia and North Carolina. She is active in her community with the Water Environment Federation and the American Society of Civil Engineers as the Government Relations Chair for the Norfolk branch.
