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In the summer of 2005 two
summer employees were hired by
VTrans to continue the Stormwater Mapping Project.
In
collaboration with District 5 and District 8 state highways were selected to
be mapped for that year. The district provided work signs, grate pullers
and other tools needed for the day to day work. They also provided as-built
plans of the highways that indicated the location of some of the stormwater
features and revealed the underground network of pipes. The environmental
section provided the Global Positioning System (GPS) and everything needed
to convert the information on the GPS into a corrected and usable format for
integration into a Geographic Information System (GIS).
Fieldwork
constituted about 80% of the total project hours through the summer. With
one member wearing the GPS backpack and taking readings the other team
member was able to make structural measurements, conditional judgments and
provide safety assistance in areas were deemed necessary. The mapping was
done by walking each road in its entirety, small sections at a time, in
order to assure all structures were recorded.
The
mapping team located all closed drainage features that had been collected to
previous year including catch basins, culverts and box culverts. This year,
however, an attempt was made to collect open drainage, which are uncontained
storm water structures such as swales, ditches and detention ponds. These
types of drainage structures were not included in the previous efforts
because they were not of man made material and considered part of the
landscape. More recently however, they have been identified recently as
part of the stormwater system as they are clearly designed to direct storm
water and are a necessary part of a functioning stormwater system.
With the closed structures structural
information such as material, size, length and type of header was recorded
as well as conditional information like grate condition, pipe condition and
erosion and scour hole conditions. With the open drainage system there are
no true structures so only conditional observations were recorded such as
erosion, ditch material and stability of bank.
The
information the storm water mapping team collected in the past two years has
not only fulfilled the federal requirements but it has also sparked an
interest within the Agency of Transportation for better awareness and care
for the existing storm water system. Working within the environmental
section the team was able to spend a large amount of hands on investigation
time that was then relayed back to the storm water section. Awareness
levels within the districts also seemed to be sparked as they saw the
possibilities that existed with a spatial database. Before the mapping
effort was complete in district 5 a partnership was created with District
8. Some of the required mapping areas left to be mapped were located in
district 8 and that district was interested in being used for a pilot
program mapping of all storm water structures in the district and
integrating that information into the MATS asset management system. One of
the interns was deployed to spend a week training and working with the two
members of the district 8 staff on the use of the Global Positioning System
(GPS) and the transfer of that information into a Geographic Information
System (GIS). As the field season was coming to a close and the system
needed for collection was not yet set up the effort was put on hold for the
winter. The project is on schedule to begin again in spring 2004.
Article and photos by
Kevin Viani, VTrans Environmental Section
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