[0:05] Many of you either have post construction stormwater

[0:08] control facilities on-site. Raise your hand if you

[0:10] have one on-site. Yeah, yeah, you guys have

[0:15] one. Yep. All right, raise your hand if

[0:18] you're here just a resident to learn more

[0:21] about these facilities. Cool. Raise your hand if

[0:26] you're here because we're from the city and

[0:28] I asked youtold you. Nothing wrong. Yay, thank

[0:33] you. So this year we are requiring all

[0:38] owners of post construction stormwater controls for water

[0:41] quality to be inspected and maintained. Maintaining them

[0:45] could be a variety of different things depending

[0:47] on what kind of BMP or best management

[0:49] practice, what's installed on your site. We do

[0:52] have some engineers here that I've reviewed many

[0:54] of their plans. So yeah, we're really glad

[0:58] to have you guys. I have my inspectors

[1:00] in the back, Dan Kern, Samuel Miller, and

[1:02] Jeff Parker. They're behind you, so you may

[1:05] see them out on your facility or they

[1:07] may be the ones you guys contact us

[1:09] to have some more insight in the field

[1:12] on what your controls are, how they're supposed

[1:14] to function, if they're looking okay, if you're

[1:16] doing the proper maintenance. I left my business

[1:19] card on everyone's table, so please feel free

[1:21] to reach out. There's also a form on

[1:23] your table that if you guys could go

[1:25] ahead and fill out. It's not the inspection

[1:27] form. It's the other it's just a single

[1:30] page form. The inspection form will go through

[1:32] together at the end with some pictures to

[1:34] kind of get everyone a feel for what

[1:35] it is that they're looking at and looking

[1:37] forward, but that other forum helps us with

[1:40] tracking and reaching out for those annual inspection

[1:42] reports and operation and maintenance documents a little

[1:46] bit later in the year. Awesome. Well, you

[1:51] guys for helping protect our water quality here

[1:53] in St. Joseph. I am here with Amy

[1:56] and Caitlin, my Black and Veatch consultants, and

[1:59] they are going to go ahead and go

[2:00] through a presentation. Do you want them to

[2:03] raise their hand if they have a question

[2:04] as you're going or would you prefer? Yes,

[2:08] please interrupt me as you'd like to ask

[2:12] a question. If you're joining us from online,

[2:15] welcome. We want you to utilize the chat.

[2:20] I can see it from here and I'll

[2:22] address your question if pop it in there.

[2:26] Can they go ahead and put their contact

[2:28] info in the chat as well? Oh, yes.

[2:30] Please put your contact information in the chat

[2:36] and please tell Colleen if you have a

[2:39] stormwater detention facility. Think I she'd love to

[2:42] know that. I think that was one of

[2:45] the entry or the entry questions. And then

[2:49] please feel free to grab a snack if

[2:50] you guys need to get up and use

[2:51] the restroom or in the hallway to your

[2:54] right hand side. If anything comes up, just

[2:57] let us know. We're here to help and

[2:58] answer questions. Thank you guys. So as Colleen

[3:02] said, my name is Amy Dietz. I've been

[3:05] with Black and Veatch for about four years

[3:08] and I've been an engineer in Kansas City

[3:11] area for about twenty. And I'm here today

[3:15] to talk about stormwater protection and inspection. It's

[3:19] not enough to build. A stormwater facility. We

[3:23] also have to maintain it, make sure it's

[3:26] still working. This live training is being recorded,

[3:35] and by participating, you are consenting to being

[3:39] recorded. Fantastic. The purpose of this course, we're

[3:44] gonna go over post construction BMPs. So things

[3:48] that we've put in place to manage water

[3:51] quality and water quantity. And then just some

[3:55] common maintenance issues that we see around the

[3:58] city. We're gonna review permitting requirements and what

[4:02] the city code says we have to do,

[4:05] and then we'll review some inspection form requirements.

[4:11] And we'll let everyone into the lobby. There

[4:20] we go. So the city has an MS4

[4:24] permit, and that's defined as a municipal separate

[4:28] storm sewer system. It's operated by the city

[4:34] and it's audited by the Missouri Department of

[4:38] Natural Resources. One of the most common deficiencies

[4:41] that pops up on an audit just anywhere

[4:44] in the nation, not specifically here, is documentation.

[4:50] That's kind of one of the hardest things

[4:52] to do. We do a pretty good job

[4:54] of everything else. We're going to go over

[4:58] the types and common maintenance issues of some

[5:02] of these facilities. When I talk about post

[5:05] construction BMPs, I mean all the water quality

[5:10] things that have been built in the last

[5:12] probably ten years. And before that, we were

[5:15] still building detention basins, which do have some

[5:18] water quality benefits. So some common issues we

[5:22] see with detention ponds are beaver, rodent activity,

[5:26] potable sedimentation, scour, and invasive species. Yeah. See

[5:35] the screen. I can see the screen. Thank

[5:39] you. Okay. Glad you asked. So the picture

[5:45] in the center there is the Amur or

[5:48] bush honeysuckle. I don't know if you're familiar

[5:50] with it. It gets these lovely white blossoms

[5:52] on it, and once you know what it

[5:54] is, you start seeing it everywhere. It's not

[5:59] enough to chop it down, you have to

[6:01] poison the stump. If you look at the

[6:04] understory in the center picture here. It's there.

[6:09] Nothing lives underneath this. This is a non

[6:13] native and a pretty expensive invasive. Counties are

[6:19] spending a lot of money getting rid of

[6:20] this stuff, cutting it back, trying to trying

[6:24] to manage it. And then there's the other

[6:27] things that you might be more familiar with

[6:29] the eastern red cedars. You have a cow

[6:32] pasture, you'll see those growing real commonly in

[6:35] it. Johnson grass and Reed canary grass. They're

[6:39] a little harder to identify. I have a

[6:42] picture here somewhere, but they just kind of

[6:46] look bully and overground really tall grasses. Another

[6:51] common issue we have with tension ponds is

[6:55] eutrophication. That's a fancy word for saying buildup

[7:00] of nutrients. The reason this is a problem

[7:03] is that lowers the dissolved oxygen in the

[7:06] pond, which kills your fish, and significantly tanks

[7:10] your recreational ability when there's dead fish in

[7:13] your pond. This happened in Krug Park Lake.

[7:20] Let's see 2023. So a couple years ago.

[7:25] And oh, Lisa, you can't hear me, I've

[7:32] gotten a notification online that we're having some

[7:35] audio issues. Paul Free notified me that he

[7:42] could hear me. So I wonder if the

[7:45] problem is on your end, Lisa. Anyway, the

[7:50] Department of Natural Resources, they do track these

[7:54] harmful algal blooms. There's a website, you can

[7:58] Google it, real easy. And it has a

[8:01] lot of, it really is pretty harmful. It

[8:05] can harm humans, pets and wildlife. Pets are

[8:09] the most common victim of this cyanobacteria. This

[8:14] examples from Jackrabbit Lake, which is in Jackson

[8:17] County, Kansas City. And And it can happen

[8:24] here. This cyanobacteria is not, you know, not

[8:27] super rare or anything, and it can cause

[8:30] neurological or liver damage to to pets. Turn

[8:40] off the speakers. There we go. And I

[8:42] will add here, a couple of years ago,

[8:45] this happened at the Lake Of The Ozarks,

[8:48] and there were reports of a lot of

[8:49] dogs getting sick from drinking the lake water

[8:53] down there with neurological diseases and issues like

[8:59] that. So it can be pretty dangerous and

[9:03] very unsightly. No one really wants to see

[9:06] a bunch of algae sitting on top of

[9:07] a pond. It doesn't look very pretty, but

[9:10] it also can be quite harmful. There we

[9:22] go. Another common issue we see is inlet

[9:26] scour. So scour is just a fancy word

[9:30] for velocities, water erosion, or, you know, nearby

[9:35] a facility. And in this case, we have

[9:39] a loss of the inlet riprap that was

[9:42] originally meant to protect the facility. And so

[9:47] normally, you know, I don't really care if

[9:50] everything looks absolutely perfect, but this kind of

[9:53] of scour over time can lead to failure,

[9:57] failure of the you know, because it supports

[10:01] the inlet and outlet structures. Okay, there we

[10:08] go. So erosion and scour, what's the big

[10:13] deal about that? You know, this picture just

[10:19] makes me very sad because this facility is

[10:23] less than five years old. I was able

[10:25] to use Google Earth and kind of use

[10:28] the time thing and it almost immediately within

[10:33] two years it failed. Scour at the outlet

[10:38] caused if you can see my cursor, it

[10:41] caused soil loss up here and it caused

[10:44] soil loss down here where my cursor is.

[10:48] And then that lack of support around the

[10:50] end section, you know, caused it to separate

[10:54] and fail. And as an engineer, I really

[10:58] strongly believe in blaming the contractor. But at

[11:01] this point, it doesn't matter. We, know, we

[11:04] have to maintain the facility because this is

[11:06] a brand new facility that could last for

[11:08] many, many more years if, you know, if

[11:11] we get a handle on it now, we

[11:14] certainly it's just going to get more expensive

[11:17] to maintain if this kind of thing is

[11:19] left to go. Some other common outlet scour

[11:26] that we see is this HDPE pipe is

[11:31] engineering wise, pretty fair product. It's light, the

[11:37] walls are thin, easy to handle. It all

[11:41] kind of snaps together with the end section

[11:43] here where my cursor is. But it is

[11:47] vulnerable to UV. So having this much of

[11:50] it exposed from the embankment is just not

[11:52] great for it. Where my cursor is, there's

[11:55] a big crack in the side of this

[11:57] pipe, so we're already experiencing some failure and

[12:01] whether that's due to UV damage or maybe

[12:04] perhaps it was hit by a mower, it's

[12:05] hard to say. But it really should have

[12:10] been protected from sunlight and damage with a

[12:14] little bit more riprap. In general, I like

[12:17] to see whatever the diameter of the pipe

[12:19] is. As a rule of thumb, I want

[12:21] like two and a half times whatever that

[12:24] the diameter of the pipe is. That's how

[12:26] wide I want that riprap usually at an

[12:29] outlet section. And then up around the top

[12:32] of it just to protect it from stuff

[12:34] like this. You can also see, not so

[12:37] only did they not make enough riprap on

[12:40] width wise, but I'm not sure they added

[12:43] enough length or if they did it, it

[12:45] got washed away. Because now we're seeing some

[12:47] scour at the toe right here where my

[12:51] cursor is. So this is the kind of

[12:54] thing though, that with a little bit of

[12:56] riprap and some landscaping landscape crew, we could

[13:00] address this pretty easily before the failure gets

[13:02] any worse. Certainly, you could also cut the

[13:05] pipe off here, reattach the end section and

[13:09] just back the whole thing up and then

[13:11] that crack wouldn't continue. I love this picture.

[13:18] This is beaver and muskrat damage from just

[13:23] one winter. So we see this bright, bright,

[13:27] bright white wood because there must have been

[13:30] an absolutely an army of these guys. This

[13:34] was not a St. Joseph City Park, but

[13:39] it was a city park. And boy, this

[13:43] is just a lot, a lot of damage

[13:47] to the trees. And if they don't do

[13:50] something about this beaver and muskrat damage, not

[13:54] only are they not going to have any

[13:56] trees in the wetland here, but they're also,

[14:00] when this wood dies, guess where it ends

[14:03] up? Blocks the inlet, you know, it ends

[14:06] up against the outlet structure and it creates

[14:10] more problems. Can I add something too? Oh,

[14:14] please do. Another thing with beaver and muskrat

[14:18] damage. I know of a property that had

[14:22] a huge Beaver Dam, the biggest one I've

[14:26] ever seen, and it had drained upon three

[14:29] feet back into and flooded the upland area

[14:34] of it. So it definitely can damage your

[14:39] facilities, the structures you have on your facilities.

[14:41] It definitely needs to be maintained, looked after,

[14:46] because they're really good engineers. They're really good

[14:49] at building things, and they can really wreak

[14:54] havoc on the things that we build. So

[14:57] definitely something to watch out for and just

[15:00] be aware of. So a detention pond is

[15:07] not a levy, but a lot of the

[15:10] maintenance recommendations and deficiency, you know, solutions are

[15:19] similar to a levee. So if you look

[15:22] at my picture here, we should really have

[15:26] a vegetation or I mean woody vegetation, woody

[15:30] vegetation free zone about 15 feet on either

[15:36] side of the embankment. And then the crown

[15:39] and both sides of the embankment should also

[15:41] be free of that woody vegetation. Our kind

[15:46] of standard size for having to address some

[15:50] of this is four inches. So if you

[15:52] have a wildlife burrow or a tree that's

[15:56] four inches in diameter or larger, then we

[16:00] not only need it removed, but we need

[16:03] to backfill it with something called mud pack.

[16:06] And mud packing is a solution of 90%

[16:10] soil and 10% concrete. And it's kind of

[16:14] a cure all for issues that you might

[16:18] have with your embankment. If you're seeing some

[16:22] scour, if you're seeing, you know, some embankment

[16:25] failure, if you're just, you know, noticing that

[16:28] you need to freshen your, you know, to

[16:32] stop some of the erosion that's going on,

[16:34] that's a great remedy. So we've talked a

[16:37] lot about, you know, the damage or deficiencies

[16:40] that you can have with your detention ponds.

[16:43] And that's a great, really inexpensive way to

[16:47] remedy some of those maintenance issues. Some other

[16:51] issues that we can have are colonizing species.

[16:56] So cattails aren't a terrible thing. But if

[16:58] they take over, you won't have in a

[17:02] bio retention system very much biodiversity if you

[17:07] let cattails take over. Bioretention is a terrific

[17:13] means of trapping and removing sediment from stormwater.

[17:17] We use it for that all the time.

[17:20] Trash and floatables also get caught up in

[17:22] it, and that's great. That's what we wanted

[17:24] it to do, But it doesn't magically vanish.

[17:26] We then have to remove it from the

[17:29] facility. Some other common issues we can get.

[17:36] Oh, this is the same The same thing

[17:38] I just talked about, but for a bioswale

[17:40] versus bioretention. So it's just basically linear. The

[17:46] photo on the bottom. Well, the photo on

[17:49] the top there, the higher photo, that's Johnson

[17:51] grass. A lot of it. So I talked

[17:54] about invasive species earlier. That's what it looks

[17:57] like if you're interested. And then the lower

[18:00] picture has cattails in it. And I think

[18:03] this photo is interesting because I can't quite

[18:06] tell what's going on. I'm not sure if

[18:09] it was designed to treat the runoff from

[18:12] the lawn before it enters the gutter. Or

[18:16] if it was meant to treat the runoff

[18:19] from the street as it leaves the gutter.

[18:23] And it doesn't matter. At any rate, it's

[18:26] completely full of cattails, whatever and sediment, whatever

[18:29] function it was providing is. It just needs

[18:33] a refresh, a little bit of maintenance here.

[18:39] So moving on, underground detention. Boy, howdy. It

[18:44] is tough to get a picture of underground

[18:46] detention. We cover it up and we forget

[18:50] about it. But I would argue that it's

[18:53] one of the more important things to inspect

[18:56] and track. Because, you know, if it gets

[19:00] forgotten about, and it gets plugged, or drilled

[19:05] into for something else, for a utility, for

[19:08] a sign, you've decided, okay, I want to

[19:11] put some fence posts in, I'm going to

[19:13] put them right across the street here, and

[19:16] oops, I hit the hit the tank of

[19:20] the underground attention. So yeah, we do have

[19:23] to they're not visible and it does create

[19:27] a little bit of an extra maintenance and

[19:29] inspection challenge there. So, yes, I'm going to

[19:38] turn it over to Caitlin. Can I skip

[19:42] a slide? Sorry. Yes, I'm going to turn

[19:45] it over to Caitlin, and she's going to

[19:47] talk about city's requirements, the code, and the

[19:50] permitting requirements. Yes, I get the super exciting

[19:55] topic of permitting city code regulations, try to

[20:01] stay awake. I will try to make it

[20:03] interesting probably won't be but I will try

[20:07] so, permitting requirements and city code Amy talked

[20:13] about we have an ms4 permit for the

[20:16] city of St Joseph With that, we need

[20:19] annual inspection and reporting for the general permit

[20:23] for stormwater facilities. General permit section division four,

[20:30] section 25 through 97 basically says, hey, we

[20:33] can go inspect your stormwater BMP, and we

[20:36] will. So if you're curious about what the

[20:41] code says, if you're into that kind of

[20:42] thing, you can go look it up. Readily

[20:45] accessible if that's something you want to look

[20:49] at for yourself. But all this says is

[20:52] that we can inspect your stormwater BMPs and

[20:56] we're going to. So the MS4 permitting part

[21:01] of your MS4 permit is you have to

[21:03] write reports. They want to know what you're

[21:06] doing to maintain your MS4 system. Colleen writes

[21:11] a report every year. It's lovely, but she

[21:14] is required to report how they're meeting their

[21:17] requirements, how many inspections they do, what your

[21:21] inspections consists of. Even things like this, educational

[21:26] events, she will write about in her MS

[21:28] four report. So thank you for all attending

[21:31] this. We will get credit for this and

[21:34] this report. So that's great. But, yeah, the

[21:37] big thing is, like Amy said, documentation. We

[21:40] need to know what's out in the city.

[21:42] We need to know how it's functioning, and

[21:45] we need to have records of that because

[21:47] when you submit your report, they wanna know

[21:49] all of these numbers. They big fan of

[21:53] data, and they wanna know all of it.

[21:57] So these are some pictures because I'm trying

[22:00] to class this up a little bit, make

[22:02] it interesting. A couple of things that we

[22:05] talk about in these reports are, like, cleaning

[22:08] up after your pets. Like, did you put

[22:12] educational signs out saying, like, this leads to

[22:15] pollution or how many illicit discharges did you

[22:18] have that you had to clean up? That

[22:20] kind of thing. Is there a couch in

[22:22] the river? I don't know. Did you have

[22:26] any leaks? That kind of thing. K. Let

[22:29] me build off of what she said. Mhmm.

[22:31] So I may be the one that's doing

[22:33] the reporting and helping facilitate our stormwater program

[22:36] here in the city of Saint Joseph, but

[22:37] it does take us as a city to

[22:39] be in compliance and to have good water

[22:41] quality. So whether you have kids or you

[22:44] have pets like we've covered, it's really good

[22:46] to make sure that we're making those smart

[22:47] decisions to keep everyone safe and for our

[22:51] kids to be able to play in creeks

[22:52] and streams as they continue to roll over.

[22:55] I for one love to play in creeks

[22:56] and streams, even as an adult, and I

[22:59] want them to be accessible and clean and

[23:01] healthy so I can continue to do that,

[23:03] as well as for all the babies out

[23:05] there. So thank you, guys. Yeah. Awesome. So

[23:12] why are inspections and maintenance records important? I'll

[23:15] go into that a little bit. So they're

[23:19] directly linked. Right? You need to know what's

[23:23] out there. You need to know what condition

[23:24] it's in. You need to know how that

[23:26] condition is changing year after year because, you

[23:29] know, things don't last forever. You need to

[23:31] replace things. You just need to know where

[23:35] your assets are and what condition they're in.

[23:38] Reporting also helps transfer knowledge when your property

[23:42] changes hands and ownership. This picture here is

[23:48] a facility that is directly upstream from a

[23:51] drinking water source. And you can see, well,

[23:55] all of these little arrows are where filter

[23:57] socks are, which is very important because it

[23:59] cleans up the water discharging off of this

[24:03] site before it goes into the drinking water

[24:04] source. Now this property was sold. The new

[24:09] property owners did not know that they had

[24:11] BMPs on-site. They did not know what these

[24:14] weird filter socks are. They did they just

[24:17] weren't aware of it. So as the years

[24:19] went on, they lost four of them. They

[24:22] never replaced them because they didn't know about

[24:25] them. And then that was impacting the drinking

[24:27] water downstream. And it's not because the owners

[24:30] didn't want to, they just didn't know about

[24:33] it. But if we had inspection forms, and

[24:36] this is not St. Joe, by the way,

[24:38] if we had inspection forms and we had

[24:40] that reporting and you could give a packet

[24:44] or a piece of paper to the next

[24:46] owner, you'd be like, oh, I should probably

[24:49] put some filter socks on this or something

[24:51] like that. And then you would have your

[24:53] protection for the drinking water downstream, and it

[24:56] wouldn't be a big deal so it's just

[24:58] like the knowledge is power type situation where

[25:03] you can't take care of something you don't

[25:05] know about so reporting and inspections help aid

[25:08] in that. Okay, and I have one thing

[25:10] to add to that, which is that Saint

[25:14] Joe does a really good job. The reason

[25:18] that few so few of my examples come

[25:20] from Saint Joe is a direct reflection on

[25:23] the terrific job that you all do for

[25:25] water quality in your city. I would just

[25:30] wanted to add that. Thanks, Caitlin. Yeah, of

[25:33] course. Is there any responsibility go through the

[25:36] title companies, property transfers, things that have been

[25:40] permitted legally through all this stuff, know, like

[25:45] with HOA and talking with HOA and then

[25:50] when the owner of the properties are gone

[25:52] and gone, how's any of that ever is

[25:54] there anything in place to transfer any of

[25:56] input down the road? I don't think there

[25:59] is currently. Personally, I feel like there should

[26:03] be. Like, when you buy a house, you

[26:05] know, you have your, like, this is what

[26:06] you should disclose about the house. It we

[26:10] don't currently have anything like that set in

[26:12] place, but I would love to get there.

[26:16] Amy, Colleen, you wanna add In HOA, you

[26:20] have, you know, HOA fees. Those go to

[26:23] a pool. That maintains all the post construction

[26:27] stormwater BMPs that were built with that HOA.

[26:32] So that is the mechanism for maintenance for

[26:35] an HOA owned stormwater facility. But for a

[26:40] facility like the one in my slide, so

[26:45] that was, it's one of the very first

[26:47] water quality things I ever worked on when

[26:49] I was in EIT twenty years ago. And

[26:53] there were just, that warehouse changed hands and

[26:56] changed hands again. And there really was no

[27:00] mechanism for, for continued maintenance or even awareness

[27:07] that that this had been built with the

[27:08] facility. And, you know, I don't. Obviously, I

[27:14] wasn't involved in the sale or the title,

[27:17] but I mean, that would have been one

[27:19] way to to enforce it. The other way

[27:21] to enforce it is that if it were

[27:24] being inspected annually and they were required to

[27:28] give an annual report to the city, then

[27:30] at least the city would know, hey, we

[27:33] haven't gotten a report from you, why? And

[27:36] they would say, well, why would we give

[27:38] you a report? And that's the city's chance

[27:41] to say, well, because you have a facility

[27:43] on-site. And they say, a what on-site? Yeah.

[27:46] Then you go forward from there. It gives

[27:49] you a trigger, basically, and a reason to

[27:52] ask them for maintenance. Yeah. And like Amy

[27:56] said, we are going to be requiring the

[28:00] inspection reports to be on file with the

[28:02] city. So Colleen will be reviewing them. Her

[28:06] team will be reviewing them. And if a

[28:08] year goes by, two years go by, and

[28:10] you don't have an updated inspection report, the

[28:13] city can call that facility or go out

[28:15] to that facility and say, hey. This is

[28:18] what's going on to kind of, you know,

[28:22] get them back on track, tell them they

[28:23] have one if they don't know about it,

[28:25] that kind of thing. But to get back

[28:27] to your original questions or statement as far

[28:31] as like real estate and disclosure of it

[28:34] we don't have anything like that right now.

[28:41] So for inspections everyone kind of does it

[28:45] a little bit differently, but we want to

[28:49] track the inspection and maintenance forms we made

[28:52] forms they are sitting on your tables you

[28:57] don't have to look at them now but

[28:58] I made them so if you want to

[29:00] make me feel useful you can look at

[29:03] them but we would want if you're doing

[29:07] an inspection on a bmp on your property

[29:10] or you're the city and you're inspecting we

[29:12] want you guys to use these forms that

[29:14] way every inspection form is the same that

[29:17] comes back so we can build a database

[29:20] we can have all the information that we're

[29:21] really looking for and it kind of takes

[29:24] the subjectivity out of it and so just

[29:28] get better data and hopefully make it easier

[29:30] for you guys if you're inspecting something because

[29:33] we're telling you exactly what we want you

[29:34] guys to look at. We also want pictures

[29:39] at the end of this packet. It says

[29:42] site plan and photos. We want you to

[29:44] take pictures and then just include it and

[29:47] then send this whole thing back to the

[29:50] city. And then the city will have record

[29:53] of it, city will hold on to it,

[29:56] and then each year we will know what

[29:58] state your VMP is in. I will put

[30:01] these on the city website as well as

[30:03] send our copies to everyone who's in attendance

[30:06] and people who are not in attendance that

[30:09] we don't have facilities that may or may

[30:11] not have made it today. So with these

[30:14] forms, don't have to try to remember to

[30:16] hold on to it, take it back, work,

[30:17] and make copies of it. You will have

[30:19] access to more of them. Yeah. And then

[30:21] we also made the definitions page as well.

[30:24] Yes. So that would be helpful when you're

[30:26] doing your inspection if you're confused about what

[30:29] word needs or if it applies to your

[30:30] facility. Yeah. So I printed off a couple

[30:33] of definition pages. I think they're sitting over

[30:36] on this table, but when Colleen puts this

[30:39] on the website, the definition page will be

[30:41] with it. So, yeah, if you have any

[30:45] questions on anything like what erosion is what

[30:47] scour is what we mean by I don't

[30:51] know anything it is there and defined. And

[30:56] the great thing about the definitions is that

[30:58] they do vary from person to person and

[31:01] from across the nation. And just yesterday, well,

[31:06] Caitlin and I talked about what's equipment and

[31:10] we had two different definitions for the same

[31:13] piece of equipment. It can happen even for

[31:16] people who work in the industry every day.

[31:19] That the definitions were really important. Thanks, Caitlin.

[31:21] Yeah. So when is maintenance required? So when

[31:26] you first build something new development when the

[31:29] BMP is installed and during the establishment period

[31:32] it's super important we want to make sure

[31:34] that the BMP was installed correctly and that

[31:36] it's functioning. Putting in a BMP is not

[31:41] helpful to anyone if it is not currently

[31:43] functioning. So during that establishment period, which is

[31:48] typically two to three years, you want to

[31:50] just keep eyes on it to make sure

[31:52] that it's growing the vegetation that it needs

[31:54] to. It's not like short circuiting anything like

[31:58] that and it's just how it's supposed to

[32:00] be. After rainfall events yesterday we got some

[32:04] rain I don't know if you guys knew

[32:06] that but after about two to three inches

[32:09] of rain you wanna go out and inspect

[32:12] your BMP. It rained really hard really fast

[32:16] yesterday, at least down in Kansas City where

[32:18] we live. It was it was a lot.

[32:22] And so we wanna just make sure that,

[32:25] like, rip rap didn't move or we didn't

[32:29] have mulch go everywhere or any kind of

[32:33] damage if you have like high winds or

[32:35] branches or things falling out like you just

[32:38] want to make sure it's still functioning after

[32:40] big weather events like that Oh short circuiting

[32:45] short circuiting is when you like bypass your

[32:49] pre treatment bypass your BMP and it just

[32:51] kind of finds the path of least resistance

[32:54] which is not where you want it to

[32:55] go. And then time we've been talking about

[33:00] doing this every year, so at least annually

[33:04] if not more often based on rain or

[33:06] if it's a new development things like that.

[33:09] And we have them due on December 1

[33:12] annually for the MS4 permits because pulling will

[33:17] write them in February, March? It's due the

[33:20] February. February. So we need all the inspections

[33:24] done by December 1 so we can put

[33:28] that all in the report for the EPA

[33:31] and the good thing about doing inspections then

[33:35] is it's after the growing season you're not

[33:37] having like active growth you can kind of

[33:40] see like if things have died back, if

[33:43] things need to be replanted, how your mulch

[33:45] is looking, so it just makes it a

[33:49] little bit easier when it's not actively growing

[33:51] you can see that the growing season's done.

[33:53] If you do have a native planting as

[33:55] a part of your BMP, I really recommend

[33:58] downloading an app like Seek or iNaturalist or

[34:01] one of those apps where you can look

[34:02] to see if you're not familiar with what

[34:04] native plants look like, taking pictures while you're

[34:06] out there to see what you have growing,

[34:08] And then also doing that during the growing

[34:11] season because sometimes it can be really hard

[34:12] to tell what something is after it started

[34:15] to die back. So you could say, my

[34:17] plants were out there not realizing that they

[34:18] were none of the intended plants. Yeah. And

[34:22] for this picture I just think it's really

[34:24] interesting that there's that hole, there's that corrosion

[34:29] that's happening and it's not by the waterline.

[34:32] So you can tell it's coming from the

[34:33] lawn and the lawn chemicals used that got

[34:37] in there or like a lawn mower clipped

[34:39] it or something which is causing that so

[34:43] I just thought that was interesting things like

[34:47] that you kind of want to look for.

[34:50] Okay so if you get out your inspection

[34:54] forms that should be on your table I'm

[34:58] just going to go through pretty quickly what

[35:02] they entail and if you guys have any

[35:04] questions or anything just raise your hand or

[35:06] interrupt me that's fine as well. So the

[35:13] ones that you guys have are for buyer

[35:16] retention which I should probably rename to just

[35:22] say like green infrastructure, because this will be

[35:25] anything that is green. It is not for

[35:27] underground detention, it's for everything else. We have

[35:31] a separate underground detention form if you have

[35:33] an underground detention facility. Also will be available

[35:37] on the website, but we're just going to

[35:39] go through the bioretention one. So the first

[35:43] part up here, pretty simple. Your project name,

[35:49] your NPDES tracking number, location, date, time, who's

[35:54] doing the inspection, general contact information should be

[35:58] pretty easy to fill out. Your MPDS tracking

[36:01] number is the state land disturbance permit number

[36:04] that your project was issued. So some projects

[36:07] may not have that. And if you're not

[36:09] sure, we can help you find that number.

[36:10] Yes. Thank you. What did you say? What

[36:12] does it say? So if you have a

[36:15] project that is over an acre of land

[36:17] disturbance or common plan development, you have to

[36:20] get the state land disturbance permit before we

[36:22] will issue a city land service permit. And

[36:25] it's called a Mora number. It's a very

[36:28] operating permit something something. Uh-uh. But, yeah, so

[36:33] it's the number on that permit that's issued

[36:36] to United States or the Department of Natural

[36:38] Resources. Yes. We can look that up for

[36:42] you guys if you don't have it. So

[36:45] under this line, you have the BMP owner's

[36:48] name, BMP owner's contact information, just in case

[36:51] we need to contact you or if you

[36:53] have any questions, things like that, we can.

[36:56] Next type of d m or BMP detention

[36:59] pond, buyer attention, bioswale, just so we kind

[37:03] of know what we're looking at. And then

[37:04] at the bottom weather information, Like, today would

[37:08] be like, oh, beautiful day, partly cloudy. Last

[37:11] time it rained. Yesterday, how many inches you

[37:14] got of rain, that kind of thing. That's

[37:17] important to know because BMPs are designed to

[37:20] slowly release water within forty eight hours of

[37:24] the last rain so you know if there's

[37:28] standing water in it and it hasn't rained

[37:30] for six days we're like, oh, that's not

[37:34] great. We need to figure out what's going

[37:36] on. But if there's standing water in it

[37:38] today, we're like, yeah, that makes sense. It

[37:41] rained yesterday. So, it's important. A good resource

[37:45] for finding out rainfall amounts here locally in

[37:48] your extension is a weather station. If you

[37:50] just Google in your extension, Buchanan County, weather

[37:54] data, and it'll year to date, you can

[37:57] also look up historical rainfall amounts as well

[37:59] for the fill out here. Perfect. Thank you.

[38:04] Okay. So that's all just general information. Next,

[38:08] we're getting into some of the details. First,

[38:10] we want you to look at your inflow

[38:12] points and structures. And if this is just

[38:15] like, whoo, I have no idea what you're

[38:18] talking about, crazy lady, hopefully, it will make

[38:21] more sense. Amy's gonna go through some examples

[38:26] where we will have you guys talk through

[38:28] them, rank them, that kind of thing. So,

[38:31] hopefully, it'll start making sense when you're actually

[38:33] doing it. I get it's a it's kinda

[38:37] theoretical at this point, and so it's like,

[38:40] don't know what you're talking about. But oh,

[38:46] I'm getting all sorts of I'm just skipping

[38:48] the slides and just going. I think we

[38:52] all can figure out bio retention versus underground

[38:55] attention. Bio retention is everything above the ground,

[38:59] everything green, and underground attention is underground, and

[39:02] there are two different forms like I mentioned.

[39:05] So underground can be literally a giant container

[39:10] essentially that they put underground that their inlets

[39:13] flow into. Typically they have a wall or

[39:15] something in them where they pull back the

[39:17] water, let sediment, and any floatable settle out

[39:20] and then it has a discharge point downstream.

[39:23] We have a few of these facilities in

[39:25] town but yeah just imagine a giant container

[39:27] that could be the parking lot. Yeah it's

[39:29] like a big concrete box mostly and it

[39:32] is to hold back rain until the system

[39:35] can handle it downstream so it's just kind

[39:38] of a little storage box for water until

[39:41] the rest of the system can handle it.

[39:44] Okay, so going through the BMP components, there

[39:48] are different sections calling out each part of

[39:52] your BMP that needs to be checked. So

[39:54] we have inflow points structures pretreatment area, which

[39:59] would be your forebay, your grass swale, which

[40:03] are just areas that water flows through before

[40:06] you get to your main green infrastructure, your

[40:09] main BMP, your perimeter, your side slopes, the

[40:15] bottom of the system, your outlet structure, your

[40:20] overflow structure, and then some general other areas.

[40:23] So each of these sections is set up

[40:26] with a yes a no an na and

[40:29] a notes area so the thought process here

[40:33] is if you go and you look at

[40:34] your inflow structure and you're like it looks

[40:37] pretty good. I don't see any issues. There

[40:39] are no obstructions. There's no erosion. There's no

[40:43] riprap fabric matting issues. You just circle no

[40:47] for all of those. You give it a

[40:50] score of great, good, fair, fail, and then

[40:54] you move on to the next section. And

[40:57] if you wanna put notes and comments, that's

[41:00] definitely helpful as well. So the thought is

[41:03] just to go by each section fill out

[41:06] yes or no questions and then call it

[41:09] a day so, the overall BMP condition there

[41:16] is a reference matrix at the back where

[41:21] you have the overall rating, you have your

[41:23] description, and, like, an example comment. So if

[41:27] it was great, a rating of great, you're

[41:29] like, this BMP is awesome. It looks amazing.

[41:33] There's nothing I would change. That would be

[41:36] a great. If it's good, it'd be like,

[41:39] well, it's functioning, but, like, maybe there's some

[41:42] trash there. Like, I need to pick up

[41:43] this plastic bag or this bottle or something.

[41:48] Fair would be, like, maybe some of the

[41:50] function is impaired. We should probably do some

[41:53] maintenance on this to get it back to,

[41:54] like, the higher level it needs to be,

[41:56] but it's still functioning somewhat. And then fail

[41:59] would be, like, it's just not functioning. There's

[42:02] invasives all over the place. It needs some

[42:05] serious work. So you can use that reference

[42:08] matrix to kind of gauge where your BMP

[42:11] is at as you're ranking it. So and

[42:14] then at the end here, you have additional

[42:17] comments and then site plan and photos that

[42:20] you can add. Yeah. I do wanna point

[42:22] out that if you do your inspection well,

[42:26] when you do your inspection this year, if

[42:28] your BNP, you feel like it's failing or

[42:31] meets the failing, overall condition, that does not

[42:36] mean we're going to start doing enforcement or

[42:39] you're not going to get in trouble. This

[42:41] is to assess how our BNPs are on

[42:43] our property and they give us a baseline

[42:44] on where we need to go to start

[42:46] maintaining them and maintain them correctly. So that's

[42:50] why also why I want pictures. We're not

[42:51] gonna get mad at you if it's failing.

[42:53] We want to know what the condition of

[42:55] it is and then help you get to

[42:57] where it needs to be so that it's

[42:58] protecting our water quality functioning as designed and

[43:01] maintained. Yeah and if you have questions on

[43:04] what you need to do with your BMP

[43:06] after the inspection, you're like well feel like

[43:08] I need more plants or things like that

[43:10] you can contact water protection and we'll be

[43:13] happy to help you guys reestablish your BMP

[43:17] so it's functioning as it should. And there

[43:19] are we put out a few years ago

[43:22] I printed some off for different types of

[43:23] BMPs, it kind of boasts of general maintenance

[43:26] what they are how they're supposed to function

[43:28] things like that and there are lot of

[43:29] resources online as well as myself and my

[43:32] team so we'll help out as much as

[43:34] possible. Okay. Going into operation and maintenance documents.

[43:40] So we should all have operation and maintenance

[43:43] documents for all of our BMPs that we

[43:45] have. The owner should have a copy, and

[43:49] ms four operator should have a copy should

[43:52] be all electronic and then the city will

[43:57] also have copies of all your inspection reports

[44:00] with that same thing, O and M document

[44:10] requirements with your inspection forms. You need to

[44:12] know who's inspecting them and what the findings

[44:16] are. And so, like, you would just want

[44:18] your inspection form to be with your O

[44:21] and M documents. So if you have, you

[44:25] know, your O and M documents saved on

[44:27] your computer in a file just keep your

[44:29] electronic copy in the same folder on your

[44:31] computer so it's all in the same area

[44:33] so when we need to look at it

[44:35] we can. Very similar type data that you

[44:41] would need. The O and M documents are

[44:44] your plan for maintaining your BMP and your

[44:49] inspection forms are how it's actually being maintained

[44:54] and how it's ranked We also for o

[44:59] and m document requirements, we want information on

[45:02] follow-up actions and enforcement actions. As Colleen said,

[45:07] we're not gonna start enforcing things right away.

[45:10] We're not going to get mad at you

[45:11] if your BMP is not quite where it

[45:13] should be but we do want you to

[45:16] make a plan what you need to do

[45:18] to bring it back up to functioning where

[45:20] it is and then how you plan to

[45:23] do that and by when. So we want

[45:26] dates of like, hey, I'm going to be

[45:28] replanting in the spring with x y and

[45:31] z plants or something like that with photos

[45:34] documentation when you do those things. So it's

[45:37] really just documenting all of your actions so

[45:40] we have all the documentation. Make a photo

[45:43] comment? Absolutely. Okay. So in this photo, we

[45:48] have inlet scour, and it's not real evident

[45:51] because they took it in a corrective action

[45:55] of putting old fence posts. That's the rounded

[45:59] things that you see in the background there.

[46:02] They put old fence posts instead of riprap

[46:05] to try to stabilize that inlet scour. And

[46:08] the issue with that is it's not, it

[46:11] doesn't really bring it back to before it

[46:14] was damaged. You know, the fence post ends,

[46:19] that waste time kind of rolls around, whereas

[46:23] riprap really works all together. It has bedding,

[46:26] it has geotextile beneath it, The gradation of

[46:31] the ripraptinal locks itself together. Old fence posts

[46:35] don't do that. So that's what we're asking

[46:38] for your corrective or follow-up actions. It's not

[46:43] to knock anyone down, it's just to make

[46:45] sure that those maintenance items really truly address

[46:49] the inlet scour before we get a failure.

[46:52] So that's pretty new concrete that wasn't cheap.

[46:55] We want to make sure that it hangs

[46:58] together for you. Yeah. And as we've mentioned

[47:01] multiple times, pictures worth a thousand words. Take

[47:05] pictures of your sites, submit them with your

[47:07] inspection forms. I'm sure Pauline is going to

[47:11] have a great filing system for all of

[47:13] your pictures that you send her. So yeah

[47:17] just make sure you take pictures. All right

[47:21] we are almost done you guys have been

[47:23] great. We are going to go through some

[47:25] practice inspection forms, to hopefully make it a

[47:30] little bit easier when we ask you guys

[47:32] to go do this. Amy, would you like

[47:35] to start? Sure. Yeah. This first one here

[47:39] is an infiltration basin. And all of them

[47:43] here, we are going to use the bioretention

[47:45] form. We're not doing an underground detention one,

[47:47] so we'll all be in the bioretention. So

[47:52] I'm gonna use my my cursor to kind

[47:54] of point at what I'm inspecting here. And,

[47:58] and some of it is going to come

[47:59] from my memory. So you're going to have

[48:01] to trust me on some of this because

[48:02] I really only have this one picture of

[48:04] the facility. The inlet looks great to me.

[48:07] I don't see scour. The pretreatment area that

[48:12] would be like this side or or maybe

[48:15] this end looks fine to me too. I

[48:17] don't see erosion undercutting. I don't see debris

[48:23] sediment accumulated here. So it looks I I

[48:27] sport it as a great on the inflow

[48:29] point and the pretreatment area. I also give

[48:32] it a great. Unwanted vegetation. I think I

[48:36] noted that there are 5% weed cover. All

[48:40] this over here. Moving on the perimeter side

[48:47] slopes, the embankment. I noted the weeds again,

[48:51] but I said overall it looks great. The

[48:54] bottom of the system. The bottom of the

[48:57] system, I didn't note that there was any

[49:00] trash like floatables, old bottles. I didn't see

[49:05] any bare ground or excess sedimentation that was

[49:10] clogging this gravel. So I I thought it

[49:14] looked great. And then on the let's see.

[49:19] For the outlet structure, you're gonna have to

[49:21] take my word on this one because it

[49:22] drained that way and I didn't get it

[49:24] in the photo. But the outlet structure, I

[49:27] didn't see any scour around it. I didn't

[49:30] see any sediment or debris in the pipe.

[49:33] I didn't see displacement of the of the

[49:36] decorative, pretty decorative gravel or riprap. And I

[49:41] didn't see displacement of the vegetation or any

[49:45] of the measures. And the outlet flow structure

[49:49] itself. Again, I rated it great. I didn't

[49:52] see anything there. And in general, it is

[49:58] not access restricted. So, I really like my

[50:03] green BMPs to have restricted access. I don't

[50:07] want the lawnmower man to come in here

[50:09] and mow everything. I've actually seen them fail

[50:13] that way. And it's always kind of sad.

[50:16] I guess it's somewhat access restricted by the

[50:19] curb. So that's good. I did not see.

[50:25] I do not know what the original proof

[50:27] plan is for this one, so I couldn't

[50:28] really score that. But overall, I gave it

[50:32] a great. Other than a little bit of

[50:33] weediness over in the corner, it looked pretty

[50:36] good to me overall. And so my, at

[50:40] the bottom, the reference matrix, I would have

[50:43] rated it great and said, it looks the

[50:45] best it can be. You don't really need

[50:47] to do anything well done. I'm going to

[50:51] move on to the next one and inspect

[50:53] it. So, these inspections don't have to take

[50:56] a ton of time. It shouldn't be a

[50:58] lengthy exercise. I'm asking you to like I

[51:02] do not need a dissertation. All day to

[51:05] look at your BMC. Just, you know, we

[51:07] want you to have your eyes on it.

[51:09] Just be aware of what's going on. We

[51:11] do ask that you have boots on the

[51:12] ground. Don't just, like, grab on to take

[51:14] a picture, like, get out, walk around. Yeah.

[51:17] Look at your inflow, your outflow. Make sure

[51:20] you can see the bottom clearly. Boots on

[51:22] the ground is always good just to really

[51:24] get a view and an idea of what's

[51:26] going on out there. And the form pretty

[51:29] much reflects that. I mean, it talks about

[51:31] the inlet, the outlet, the bottom, the sides.

[51:34] The form really does assume that you've inspected

[51:38] the whole facility with your feet. So let's

[51:43] look at the inflow point first. I rated

[51:46] it fair. You'll have to kind of take

[51:48] my word for it, but I see about

[51:50] four inches of scour at the inlet here.

[51:54] I noted erosion and undercutting. I noted four

[51:59] inches of scour at the inlet here. In

[52:02] the pretreatment area, which was over here where

[52:06] if you can see my cursor, I noted

[52:09] sediment and debris accumulation. I noted erosion on

[52:14] the side well, right here in the forebay.

[52:17] I noted unwanted vegetation. It was pretty weedy.

[52:22] I noticed no bypassing or short cutting. It

[52:27] does appear that everything that was designed to

[52:30] flow to the facility is still getting there.

[52:33] That was good. And then I noted the

[52:35] vegetation. There's some cattails in the bottom of

[52:37] it. Moving on to the side slopes, I

[52:42] rated those fair. I do not see the

[52:46] kind of establishment that I would hope for

[52:48] on the side slopes here after five years.

[52:52] Within five years, I would expect 100% establishment

[52:55] of these side slopes here. I noted debris

[53:00] and accumulation or accumulation of sediment. I did

[53:05] not note a lot of erosion on the

[53:07] side slopes. It does appear like the side

[53:09] slopes aren't experiencing erosion. I do see some

[53:13] unwanted vegetation. I'm pretty sure these willows were

[53:17] not purposely planted there. Willows aren't a huge

[53:23] problem, though. And then I just said, overall

[53:27] fair condition, poor establishment on the side slopes.

[53:32] I next rated the bottom of the system.

[53:34] I rated it fair. I noted some kind

[53:37] of weedy, unwanted vegetation. I noticed some sediment

[53:41] accumulation. I noticed some evidence of inadequate drainage,

[53:47] So I'm guessing that this bare spot here

[53:50] was because there's probably usually some water that

[53:53] sits there. It's meant to be dried tension.

[53:57] If you have basin with a permanent pool,

[54:00] obviously that's fine. Let's see. And then I

[54:05] noted that there was some bare ground and

[54:07] erosion over here. You can see it in

[54:09] this part of the photo. And so I

[54:12] said that it was fair and then I

[54:14] estimated about six inches of sediment sitting in

[54:18] the bottom of this thing. It may never

[54:21] have been cleaned out after being used as

[54:24] a temporary sediment thing. The outlet structure looked

[54:28] great to me. I didn't see any obstructions

[54:30] on it. I took a peek inside. I

[54:33] didn't see any chunks of Styrofoam or card

[54:37] mats or anything like that in there. You

[54:39] never know. I've seen some really wild things

[54:41] inside of an outlet structure. I didn't see

[54:44] any erosion around this part, the supporting part.

[54:50] I did not note anything else. It looked

[54:53] great to me. Rated the outlet structure great,

[54:56] and the overflow structure as well. Caitlin has

[55:00] this separated on the form just to point

[55:04] this out because the outlet structure is where

[55:06] my cursor is, see. But the overflow structure

[55:10] is the path when the outlet structure is

[55:13] overwhelmed by a big event. Where's the overflow

[55:17] structure? Like, where does it go next? So

[55:19] that's what that's referring to. So that was

[55:22] this, a swale that you can just barely

[55:25] see in my photo. And, it had good

[55:28] establishment. I rated it great. Enough said. In

[55:33] general, I did not find that they accessed,

[55:38] that there was any restricted access to it.

[55:40] You could theoretically, I suppose, mow it. That

[55:43] wouldn't be super desirable, though. But it doesn't

[55:47] have a permanent pool. So maybe they wanted

[55:51] to leave it unfenced. Don't really have a

[55:53] problem with that. I did find evidence that

[55:57] maintenance hasn't been conducted since it was built

[56:00] five years ago. And I based that on

[56:03] the scour at the outlet, the loss of

[56:07] riprap, and just the general condition of the

[56:11] vegetation and the and the sediment accumulation. So

[56:16] overall, I rated it fair, and I noted

[56:19] that the inlet end section failure due to

[56:21] scour here and the loss of the riprap.

[56:27] I noted trash needs to be removed. It

[56:29] needs to be weeded, damaged to the inflow

[56:32] pipe. If I were turning this in every

[56:37] year, then I would know exactly when this

[56:42] end section failed. So it wouldn't be any

[56:45] kind of mystery to me as to how

[56:47] long the design lasted from when it was

[56:49] built. If I'm taking photos of it every

[56:51] year, I can look back and say, Oh,

[56:54] well, last year this thing was fine. There

[56:56] might have been a big storm or something

[56:57] that damaged it. Yep, there is one more.

[57:04] So inflow, the rain garden looks great. I

[57:10] didn't see any loss of riprap erosion. I

[57:15] didn't see any obstruction, anything obstructing water from

[57:18] getting into the rain garden. The pretreatment area

[57:23] that would be up here, I think. It

[57:26] looks good to me. I don't see any

[57:27] sediment accumulation. The perimeter and side slopes. I

[57:34] didn't note any erosion of this area here

[57:38] that slopes into the subgrade. I not note

[57:45] that I thought the bottom of the system

[57:46] looked good too. There's mulch covering anywhere there's

[57:50] not plants, so there's no bare soil. I

[57:54] didn't see any areas where water was obviously

[57:57] standing and should not. So I think it's

[57:59] probably infiltrating pretty well. And I noted that

[58:04] the mulch adequately protects the soil. So if

[58:08] we want to replant in the middle there,

[58:09] we can. But in the meantime, the mulch

[58:12] is doing its job. Moving on to the

[58:16] outlet. This picture came from the city and

[58:20] I didn't have pictures of the outlet, so

[58:22] I made up stuff. I just said it's

[58:25] great, probably is great. The outflow structure too

[58:28] looked great to me. And then in general,

[58:31] I gave this BMP a great overall condition.

[58:36] I said it looks the best that it

[58:38] can be and nothing needs to be addressed

[58:40] or changed. I did say that it wasn't

[58:44] access restricted, but it appears that there's enough

[58:49] of a landscape barrier that it's not really

[58:53] vulnerable to mowing. One of the biggest failures

[58:56] that I find with rain gardens is having

[58:58] them accidentally be mowed. And I will say

[59:01] what what we mean by access restricted. The

[59:07] big thing would be, is someone going to

[59:10] accidentally mow over it? Are you gonna be

[59:13] like, wow, there are a lot of weeds

[59:15] and grass. It's really tall. We should mow

[59:17] that. Why did someone let this go? That

[59:20] happens a lot. So we like to have

[59:23] a little bit of a barrier, whether it's

[59:24] the rocks, things like that. Just something that

[59:27] indicates, like, don't actually mow it, don't go

[59:30] in there. If it is a wet retention

[59:34] pond, something like that that has a permanent

[59:36] pool of water, we want, you know, more

[59:40] access restriction like fences and stuff. We don't

[59:43] want kids falling in to a pond or

[59:47] anything like that. But we don't necessarily mean,

[59:50] like, there has to be a fence around

[59:52] every facility. It just, you know, needs to

[59:55] be obvious enough that this is actually a

[59:58] stormwater facility, stormwater asset that we're not going

[1:00:01] to just mow over, ignore. But then now

[1:00:06] we have the safety concerns too if there

[1:00:07] is standing shelter. And with that, I'll open

[1:00:12] it up to questions. Our friends that are

[1:00:17] joining us virtually, I'm watching the chat more

[1:00:23] closely. Don't see any questions from the chat,

[1:00:26] but I'd like to take some time and

[1:00:29] answer any questions that you might have or

[1:00:32] even just discuss stormwater concerns that you are

[1:00:36] thinking about. I mean, we we have time.

[1:00:39] So a question or even just a discussion

[1:00:42] that someone would like to open up would

[1:00:44] be, this is the time for it. Will

[1:00:46] all the inspection forms be paper or will

[1:00:49] the in the future be like, we're driving

[1:00:51] just put down a link, fill it out,

[1:00:53] submit it with the pictures attached? We would

[1:00:57] like it to not be paper if it's

[1:00:58] there. So we are trying to build it

[1:01:02] database to where it it will be all

[1:01:04] electronic. You can type your, you know, inspection

[1:01:09] information on it, submit the pictures with it,

[1:01:12] and then just upload it all. I don't

[1:01:14] know if it'll be Google Drive. I don't

[1:01:16] know if it'll be a database that the

[1:01:18] city maintains or anything like that. But, yes,

[1:01:21] we are trying to move to the electronic

[1:01:23] versions only. The paper forms here are just

[1:01:29] to, you know, start some. And we could

[1:01:33] do a PDF format too in the in

[1:01:35] the meantime. Yeah. Like it's it's notable PDF.

[1:01:39] But, yeah, the the paper was just a

[1:01:45] little easier to give everyone. Also, really need

[1:01:49] to staple 40 coffees. Yeah. Caitlin loves using

[1:01:57] her master's degree staple paper. Yep. So do

[1:02:00] I. I went to the school for this.

[1:02:06] Any other questions? Comments? Yep. For a newer

[1:02:13] project that supposed to have BMP is going

[1:02:15] in the next few months, if everything gets

[1:02:17] put in, like, August or something, will you

[1:02:19] still hope to get a BMP inspection report

[1:02:20] by December? Yes. Okay. Just because it would

[1:02:25] be the establishment period. Mhmm. So once you

[1:02:28] install it, you would want, you know, record

[1:02:31] of that, that it is installed and it

[1:02:33] is functioning. And we also do that as

[1:02:36] a part of our final inspection for those

[1:02:37] type of questions. So if you're you've submitted

[1:02:42] plans for one and it calls out, like,

[1:02:44] seeding with mated grass seed or forks or

[1:02:47] something like that, we're probably not going to

[1:02:49] close out that project until we have establishment

[1:02:52] of those needs. So we are recommending that

[1:02:55] people use gloves to make it put in

[1:02:57] the library. So thank you. And I want

[1:03:01] to also point out that you guys doing

[1:03:02] these inspections and doing the required maintenance is

[1:03:05] also protecting an investment that you made with

[1:03:08] your property and your facility. So not only

[1:03:10] is this good for us, for us in

[1:03:12] the city to be in compliance, but it's

[1:03:14] something that your facility paid for to have

[1:03:16] installed. So if you're not maintaining it, you're

[1:03:19] kind of wasting that money you've already spent

[1:03:21] and then it costs more money to come

[1:03:22] back in and fix it later. I'm like

[1:03:25] paying you now, paying you later, how much

[1:03:27] more expensive is it going to be later?

[1:03:30] And the advantage to inspecting your BMP in

[1:03:33] the first year is that it gives you

[1:03:35] that baseline. Here's what it looked like when

[1:03:39] it was new. And because I mean, I

[1:03:43] do, we do work nationwide. If I didn't

[1:03:46] have a picture of something I looked at

[1:03:48] a year ago, I would not be able

[1:03:50] to tell you what it originally looked like

[1:03:53] or whether it was built a plan. So

[1:03:56] it's just that institutional memory. It helps us

[1:03:59] all. Yeah. And as long, like, we're not

[1:04:03] going to score you badly or get mad

[1:04:06] or anything if, like, your natives aren't established.

[1:04:09] We know it takes time. So if you,

[1:04:11] you know, do your inspection in August or

[1:04:14] September and they're not all established, we know

[1:04:16] that, and that's fine. Like I said, please

[1:04:20] feel free to reach out to us. You

[1:04:22] guys have my business cards. Sam's business card

[1:04:24] is up at the sign in table. I

[1:04:27] will send out all these documents, the training,

[1:04:30] everything, so that you guys can go back

[1:04:32] and review. There's a definition sheet that I'll

[1:04:35] send out as well, because I realize some

[1:04:37] of these terms are probably not as familiar

[1:04:40] to you as they are to us who

[1:04:41] are in the industry and work in it

[1:04:43] all the time. But we want to protect

[1:04:46] our water quality, we want to provide assistance,

[1:04:48] We wanna save you guys money on your

[1:04:50] property so that you don't have to completely

[1:04:52] redo something that you already paid to have

[1:04:54] installed. And also doing those initial inspections, it's

[1:04:57] really important too to make sure that what

[1:05:00] we were told that were going to get

[1:05:02] as a part of your project is what

[1:05:04] was installed and it was also installed to

[1:05:06] your liking because it's your property and you

[1:05:08] want to maintain it a certain way. So,

[1:05:10] some of these facilities can be incredibly beautiful.

[1:05:14] If anyone's aware of our stormwater mountain just

[1:05:16] for the forming pond, that's something we do

[1:05:18] put a lot of work and effort into

[1:05:20] it, it's also gorgeous and it provides a

[1:05:22] lot of habitat for our native pollinators, our

[1:05:25] local wildlife. They were here first, so we

[1:05:28] might as well learn to live with them

[1:05:30] and provide them habitat for them. Does anyone

[1:05:34] have any questions for me?

St. Joseph Stormwater Protection and Inspection Meeting 2025

Transcript