Newletters, helpful advice and other pearls of wisdom from Earthworks' staff.
by Don Abresch // 2020-08-10
The Environmental Protection Agency requires every commercial building project to employ certain best management practices (BMPs) to control stormwater and protect water resources. Commercial land development and urban sprawl increase the number of impervious surfaces, such as roofs, pa...
Read Moreby Rick Jackson // 2020-08-04
The intensity of a storm can have a significant impact on soils, causing sediment laden runoff. The greater the intensity, the more sediment that is displaced and carried away in runoff in a shorter amount of time. A longer rain event with the same amount of water will not cause the same ...
Read Moreby Matthew Trygg // 2020-08-04
BMPs such as silt fence, straw wattles, bio logs, erosion control blanket and rip rap are effective ways to control sediment on your construction site, though only if they are installed and maintained properly. For example, when BMP crews install erosion control blankets (ECB) the ECB mus...
Read Moreby Haley Daily // 2020-08-04
Over the past few years Texas has experienced unpredictable weather ranging from storms that produce severe flooding to extended periods of drought. Stormwater banking is the idea to first capture floodwater in order to help mitigate its impacts to then store it in aquifers and utilize it...
Read Moreby Rick Jackson // 2020-08-04
Soils get classified as cohesive or cohesionless. A cohesive soil has an attraction between particles of the same type, origin, and nature. Therefore, cohesive soils are a type of soil that stick to each other. Cohesive soils are the silts and clays, or fine-grained soils. A cohesionless ...
Read Moreby Johnathan Clayton // 2020-08-04
As many homebuilders have noticed, there has been an increase in NPDES regulatory inspections across the state of Florida. Whether the regulatory inspections are completed by state, county or municipality, it can be very stressful for site supervisors and others involved with NPDES compli...
Read Moreby Brooks Morse // 2020-08-04
Choosing the right Best Management Practice (BMP) for a site is very crucial and can be costly if chosen incorrectly. When deciding what stormwater BMP will work, the field conditions that must be considered includes the following: how much water flow will need to be filtered/slowed/redir...
Read Moreby Mark Hubbard // 2020-08-04
The Maricopa County Air Quality Department has the following purpose statement “Working to improve the air of Maricopa County so customers, residents, and visitors can live, work, and play in a healthy environment”. One way to accomplish this is to enforce a strict set of rules that gover...
Read Moreby Haley Daily // 2020-08-04
As urbanization and development activities continue the number of impervious surfaces increases, leading to a rise in volume and rate of stormwater runoff. With higher amounts of runoff, pollutants are more likely to contaminate water if not properly treated. In the early 1970s, two-third...
Read Moreby Matthew Trygg // 2020-08-04
A Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) must be developed prior to the start of construction and prior to applying for any National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit in order to receive a NPDES Permit. A well-developed SWPPP is the first line of defense for sed...
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