Converting Dirty to Beautiful
The genesis of an ambitious project was all the way back in 2009, when the city of Beaverton, OR, began the process of applying for a capital grant with Metro, an agency that oversees the Portland metropolitan area. Created more than 30 years ago, Metro is designed to provide regional planning and coordination in managing growth, infrastructure, and development, often crossing various jurisdictional boundaries, and serves an area of some 1.5 million residents.
Beaverton, a community of more than 94,000 people, is located about 7 miles west of downtown Portland. “We wanted to clean up an area of Hall Creek that had become known as the dirtiest section of the creek,” says Debbie Martisak, project manager in the Beaverton Public Works Department. “It was because of the big car lots and big mechanics shops that are there, as well as people parking in ditches.”
In 2012, the city was awarded a significant grant from Metro, in the amount of $354,000, to help fund work on a 650-foot section of Hall Creek. Officially known as the Hall Creek Water Quality and Pathway Enhancement Project, the project’s goal is to realign the creek and adjacent trail, reconnect the floodplain, remove invasive plants, stabilize banks with native plants, remove impervious surfaces, and create swales for enhanced water quality.
Martisak notes that the Metro grant amounted to about a third of the total estimated cost of the project. “This grant really sparked the design and made it possible to have this project happen,” she says. “Without that money, we wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
“So with the grant in hand, we went through the design process. Putting a filter vault in wasn’t part of the original plan, but the design process indicated that this was the right step to take for our area. It became important to us once we went through the design process and began looking at hydrology, pervious surfaces and impervious surfaces, and what’s actually flowing to the creek.
“It’s a very substantial area, an area that’s highly industrial and commercial. It’s in the heart of what we call our downtown. We started talking to our agency—called Clean Water Services—about our plans, and what types of things they would like to see. They’re a regulatory agency here in Beaverton that provides permits for this area of Washington County. They were also a big supporter of our plans, by donating plants and their employees’ time. They recommended having a filter vault in this location, to collect all of the runoff on private property and a little bit of public property as well.
“Most of what we were doing was to improve the urbanized area, taking what was a poorly functioning creek and making modifications to the creek that would support the aquatic life and the hydrology of the area. It’s a pretty straight and narrow creek, with high velocities, that was scouring out the banks by up to four feet. We had to do something.
“There’s quite a bit of area there that was not being filtered, and it was considered to be a very dirty area of the city, because of the types of businesses that are there. So we decided to add on a filter vault to our project.”
Martisak learned, however, that there was only one approved supplier for these vaults.
“So initially, we were only getting one bid, which isn’t the way that we do business. It’s not normally cost effective, especially when we’re talking about a $40,000 to $50,000 piece of equipment for our infrastructure.
“Therefore, we requested that they work out and approve another manufacturer and different design. This resulted in Oldcastle Stormwater Solutions getting their Perk Filter vault approved, in addition to a third manufacturer as well, so now there are more competitors in the area. This means they can offer different pricing for the same type of vault.”
Installing the Perk Filter vault
Deon Lourens, area technical manager with Oldcastle, describes the Perk Filter. “Its cartridges have no moving parts and no cartridge hood, allowing for easier maintenance observation. In addition, its design allows for fewer cartridges than alternative models, and the bypass flow underneath the cartridge bay limits re-entrainment of pollutants.”
He notes that the cartridge life cycle can range from one to three years, depending on the pollutant load. “The cleaner the influent, the longer the duration between maintenance cycles.”
Martisak says, “We ended up hiring Oldcastle. They came in as the lowest bidder, and they came up with a design for us, together with our city engineer, who sat in with Cardno WRG, the engineering firm who did the design work. They approved our shop drawings and they made modifications as they saw fit in consultation with Oldcastle.”
She adds, “Oldcastle and Cardno WRG were very helpful in discussing exactly which area is being covered by the vault, how much water is being filtered—going over the precise numbers for this creek enhancement project.”
Construction finally began in July 2015. “That’s when our contractor started excavation,” explains Martisak. “We’ve been working on it since, and our own city staff actually installed this vault. So it was a cost saving to the city to purchase the vault, and our team of engineers worked with Oldcastle to see what we were going to get before it came onsite, how it was going to be delivered, and how it was going to be set up. They were onsite with us when it came, and it was crucial to make sure that it was set up with the correct grade and level.
“Our city team was able to place and install the connections and everything that comes into this vault, as well as the pipes that come out of the vault. That saved us quite a bit of money, since our labor hours are much less than if we would have contracted it out. That was a unique aspect to this project, having our city staff able to place and install the vault. This was a challenge that we overcame, and it came out perfect.”
The Perk Filter vault was just one element of this overall water-quality improvement effort. In addition, the city installed new curbs and a landscaping planter and did some parking lot resurfacing. The project area now includes some pervious concrete, a number of plantings, and a new boardwalk.
The plantings involved a major group effort. Native plants, shrubs, and trees have been newly planted along both sides of the creek. Local volunteers assisted in the plantings, conducted in October and November of 2015 and January 2016. A final volunteer planting day took place in April 2016, on Arbor Day, in conjunction with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new trail that was created in the area.
The Oldcastle Perk Filter vault is now in place, filtering the water and taking out the garbage that is collected from the storm system, including the runoff from the parking lot, before it goes directly into Hall Creek.
“The vault was operational through all the big winter storm events,” says Martisak. “Beaverton has gone through some record storms, and it has performed really well.”
She explains some of the other elements in the local enhancement effort. “We already had plantings and water-quality plants that went into this project. We also did mitigation upstream, to ensure that we’ve got good shading of the creek. We pretty much took out the majority of the trees that were non-native and invasive. When we cleared them all out, it left the area looking very bare, although it was nice to be able to see the aesthetics of what we were able to change in the channel.
“For water quality, we have a rain garden that is also part of the project. We have two swales that are taking stormwater outfall from the parking lot at a car dealership. We’ve also made changes to the creek’s alignment, to slow it down and to give the channel and the area downstream a better chance to avoid flooding.
“We were able to do some floodplain work, to grade it out, so that when we do have big rain events, it will actually have somewhere to go, instead of the plain four-foot-deep, straight channel that nature provided.
“The other stormwater work we have done is to install new catch basins in the parking lot for an apartment complex on the north side of the creek, to handle the stormwater coming off of these adjacent properties.”
Cedomir Jesic, an engineer with Cardno WRG, elaborates on some of the stormwater-related aspects of the project: “There are two treatment trains. One is the filter vault, with catch basins clearing the stormwater of debris before it even reaches the vault. Then there is also a series of catch basins throughout the parking lot, with a water-quality pretreatment manhole that leads into the swale.
“It wasn’t entirely clear what drains here, so with the catchment area, it was assumed that it can either drain to this vault, or to the adjacent water-quality swale. So we have the vault, and we have a water-quality planter, a swale, that treats another part of the catchment area.
“A part of the development drains directly to this water-quality facility. On this project we are using both mechanical treatment, with the Perk Filter, and vegetative treatment with the water-quality swale. We were very fortunate that we were able to build this vegetative facility and call it a conveyance facility, but it’s planted as a water-quality facility, so we know that some treatment will occur.
“We’re doing as much water-quality treatment as is feasible with existing outfalls. There has been extensive landscaping. So there has been stream restoration, enhancement, and improvement of water quality.”
Clearwater Solutions’ BMP-01 device with trash baskets
One of the problems the city encountered before the project began was that there are five separate private property owners in this area of Hall Creek. As Martisak notes, it had become a case of “Who’s doing what?” with the result that nothing was done.
“There was a trail,” she says, “but it was a bit dicey, because it wasn’t maintained by these property owners. We took over responsibility not just for the installation of this filter vault on private property, but we will be continuing to do all the maintenance on it forever, changing all of the filters forever. We will also be ensuring that all of these plants are maintained and nourished for three years. This helps ensure that the area is going to eventually maintain its own water quality, as the planted trees get bigger, the shading of the creek increases, and as the stormwater is being treated by plants that were specifically chosen for this environment. It’s a low-impact development project.
“We did everything we possibly could to make this a very natural, established end product. We went the extra mile to get this filter vault. We had to get more money to do the right thing. That shows the city’s sense of responsibility for the creek and its integrity by actually paying some $40,000 for a piece of equipment that wasn’t initially planned. We didn’t have to do this, we weren’t required to; it was a matter of doing the right thing, and that’s what the city did.
“We were able to take all the issues that we saw and make something that is not just effective, but is beautiful. The project turned out incredibly fabulous.”
Cardno’s Jesic is impressed with the work. “The city crews did a really good job,” he notes. “There were different groups working within the city—there were utility and pipe crews doing one thing, street crews doing another thing, and the landscape people working with volunteers to do all the planting.”
Another issue the city encountered before the work progressed very far what was found underground where the vault was to be placed.
“We ran into a situation with some contaminated soil,” explains Martisak. “When we were digging, we found oil sheens. We would dig a hole, and it would just fill up and have a sheen to it. We had it tested, and we had to reclaim everything that came out of that particular area, and send it to a specific location to be handled quickly.
“We’re talking very low amounts here. We actually did more than we had to, but when we found something in one small spot, we decided to treat the whole area. These oils we found are likely a direct result of the businesses that have been in that area for decades.”
The oil contaminants weren’t the only underground problem.
“When we started digging our test holes for this new vault, we found that some major electrical lines were in the way, so we had to move the location of the vault, in order not to have to go under or above the electrical transformers,” she says.”You never know what’s underground until you start tunneling in.
“We had to do some adjustments with moving the vault’s alignment. The original design had one way for the pipes to go in, but now it’s turned and moved over so we can get a more direct shot without having to worry about a transformer.”
Martisak notes that without the Metro funding, this project might never have taken place, or would have been significantly scaled down. But the city of Beaverton didn’t sit idly by waiting for a funding decision. “We got 26 big local supporters for this project, from the police department to Fish & Wildlife to area agencies—big players who came to the table and said at the beginning of the process that they like the idea, that there is a strong need here, and that they support this project.
“Because we had so many supporters that came to the Metro meetings, I think the grant committee was overwhelmed with the fact that there was so much support. It would have been difficult for them to say no!
“But without that grant, I do not think that this project would have gone forward to the level that it did. We probably would have had to do a low-maintenance project and just cleaned it up a bit.”
Clean Storm Drains for a New Road
Temecula, CA, is a community of just over 100,000, located in the wine country of Riverside County in the far southern portion of the state.
“There really isn’t much of Temecula that hasn’t been built out,” says Joe Arthur, co-owner of Clearwater Solutions. “But there is a section that has just had a new road put in, just in the last year or two. It’s in an area of maybe 120 acres.
“Right now, all there is in the vicinity is the land, a firehouse, and all the curbs and gutters along the main thoroughfare. You can look down this road about three-quarters of a mile, then up another three-quarters of a mile, and there is nothing along that road. The area is just getting ready to be subdivided and broken up and earth moved for housing in the area. What they have done is to connect an old part of town with the newer part, and now they’re going to build in between.”
Clearwater Solutions was selected to provide 14 of its large curb inlet filtration systems, known as BMP-01, along this new road. Arthur notes that his company has already installed several hundred similar systems throughout the affluent community.
This BMP-01 unit, the largest that Clearwater Solutions offers, is nearly cube-shaped, with dimensions of 30 by 34 by 30 inches. It’s a multi-chambered stainless steel system meant to filter out trash, sediment, oil and grease, various metals, and pathogens.
“The primary thing that you’re going for is the first flush, especially for us in this region,” says Arthur. “In that first flush, you’re going to have leaves and large debris, you’re going to have sediment and what goes with the sediment. This includes pollutants that people are especially concerned with, such as lead, zinc, nitrates, and phosphates.
UltraTech custommade screens to fit different sizes of inlet
“With our filters, anything bigger than three-quarters of an inch—things like sticks and cups and the like—don’t even go down into the filter. Instead, they slide down into the trash basket in the front of the device.”
The device has three chambers. “About 80 to 85% of what we remove from the water column is taken out in the first three settling areas,” he says. “So then it’s relatively clean water that goes through the media filter at the end of the chain. That takes out the smaller things that are still in solution.”
There is also a prefilter in the unit, a hydrocarbon boom manufactured by ClearTec known as a Rubberizer.
“It hangs in the first chamber, at the floating level,” explains Arthur. “This actually attracts the hydrocarbons. If you had water with a sheen on it, you would see the sheen move toward this material.
“Then it goes through a catalytic process that turns the Rubberizer hard as it absorbs these hydrocarbons. Because of that process, we can dispose of these booms in a standard dry landfill. You’re not creating hazardous waste, because the oil and hydrocarbons are not going to leach back off of that material into the ground or the groundwater.”
There is not much maintenance required with the units. Arthur advises replacing the filters with roughly every 10–12 inches of rain, which he says translates to approximately annual replacement in this part of the country.
His recommendation is to inspect the systems during the first quarter of the year. He notes thatthe filter contains a media bank, the very last thing thewater goes through. “There are two of these in these BMP-01 devices,” he says. “You pull those bags out and put new bags in, with fresh media. Of course, you also then vacuum out the sediment and debris that is in the chamber itself.
“When we do our inspections, we’ll often dump the trash in the system because it is relatively simple to get in there. You just take the trash basket off of the unit, turn it inside out into a trash bag, and just place the basket back on there. You can get 60 to 70 pounds of material in the trash basket.”
Except for the disposable items, such as the trash baskets and the hydrocarbon boom, the primary components of the inlet filter systems are manufactured with reinforced stainless steel. Arthur estimates their expected life to be roughly 15–20 years, “as long as the system is properly sized, designed, installed, and maintained.”
No More Diapers
As with many other growing cities, a community near Los Angeles found it had greater maintenance needs than staff to handle them. “The city has thousands of curb inlets, all across the city, and they’ve only got a couple people for that entire program to clean and maintain all the storm drains. And these people also have a lot of other jobs as well. The city budgets are tight,” says Cary Winters, western regional sales manager for UltraTech International.
“One of the frustrating things for them is, for example, what if a diaper gets in one of those curb inlets? If it gets into the pipe, then all of a sudden they have that whole catch basin backing up during a rain event, up out of the catch basin and into the street,” he says. “So they would have to take their only two guys and send them to that area for maybe five hours, block it off, fish the diaper out, and unplug the drain or unplug the pipe. And this kind of thing kept happening. There were diapers, there were soda boxes and who knows what else that goes down into those catch basins and into the outlet pipes of each catch basin.”
The city did not have catch basin inserts or filters in place—”just wide open catch basins,” says Winters. “But they ended up getting some funds to install 125 of our stainless steel screens. They were a multitude of different sizes. It seems that every one of these curb inlets was a different height and a different length, and even sometimes different heights at different places along a single curb.”
UltraTech was awarded the contract to install the inlet screens, but the work was demanding. “It was definitely a challenging job,” he adds. “There were places where there was a giant bar going across a curb inlet, and there was built-up asphalt in other places so the screen wouldn’t mount flush against the inlet properly.
“And there were varying height issues,” explains Winters. “For example, if you have a 20-foot-wide inlet, one end of it might be six inches tall, while the other end is nine inches tall, and different heights everywhere in between those two, depending on how high the asphalt was built up and how the curb was laid. That was a major challenge. We had to take specific measurements and remake multiple units. Some we had to make smaller, so we could install three or four feet, and then longer segments, so that was certainly an install challenge.
“We custom-made these screens for them. We had to design and laser-cut each individual screen specifically to the size they needed.”
Nevertheless, the work proceeded quickly and was completed within the span of a couple weeks. “We just needed time to drill the anchors into place and get the screens on,” says Winters. “Every one had a wedge anchor to install. There were multiple anchors that got drilled into the concrete to hold it in place.”
Now the city has fewer diapers in its curb inlets—and fewer other surprises. “When we were taking measurements,” notes Winters, “I saw a VCR in one of the inlets! And a projector was in another one. Literally every one of these curb inlets should have these screens in place.”