When it comes to handling stormwater in most urban and suburban environments there are several key points to remember. The first is that it’s important to remove as much of the various contaminants as possible before the water is allowed to enter any streams or rivers. The second is that, as much as is possible, the water should be retained and allowed to soak into the ground at thousands of different points rather than runoff to the nearest stream or river. There are many different ways to filter stormwater, and it makes a difference what kinds of pollutants that it contains. Chamber systems for stormwater has some great advantages over other methods for filtering and detention of stormwater, here are some of the most important.
Detaining And Retaining The Water is Regulated
Stormwater is one of those things that there is either way too much or not enough of, at any given time. When the rain is falling, it’s important to keep as much of it as possible in the area where it lands and allow it to soak into the ground. This helps replenish the water table and make up for all of the wells that human civilization has drilled to extract drinking water.
Plus all of the thousands of miles of paved roads, parking lots, and buildings are all areas impervious to water which only makes things worse. By providing large volume storage tanks embedded into the ground at regular intervals, much of the stormwater can be saved and given extra time to reintegrate into the ground water system.
The Best Chamber Systems For Stormwater
Will have a very small above ground footprint that allows the valuable land to be utilized to the fullest. Yet have plenty of storage to help retain, filter, and harvest rainwater. These chambers must be strong enough to support vehicles since they will be installed under roads, parking lots, athletic fields, and any other location where needed.
New building permit requirements in most states now have very strict runoff regulations that make it imperative that most runoff be handled on location. Therefore the chambers for underground storage of stormwater must come in a variety of sizes and shapes to fit whatever space is available due to bedrock and other capacity restrictions.
Part Of a Comprehensive Stormwater System
Before getting started it’s best to have a complete plan that takes into consideration the types of litter, amount of runoff, bedrock limitations, and other contaminants that need to be dealt with. Some areas have a high oil content to the runoff, while others suffer from large amounts of litter. Each type of contaminant will have various ways of being filtered out for later pickup, either by large vacuum trucks or simply by hand depending on quantity.
Underground storage tanks can filter many different pollutants including phosphorous, nitrogen, lead, zinc, and organic carbon molecules like oils. They can also be coupled with specially designed hydrodynamic separators to remove litter and silt as well.
In handling stormwater it’s best to have a well designed plan by an engineer that covers all the bases from collection to filtering. That way no matter how much rainwater falls on a given day it is mostly handled on-location with very few pollutants and contaminants leaving the premises.