Maintenance, Rehabilitation and Repair

Overview

The desired level of service for an individual BMP or an entire inspection and maintenance program encompasses the frequency and type of inspection and maintenance activities that will be undertaken. For example, will BMP inspections be done on an annual basis or more frequently for high priority/visibility ones? Will this vary based on the size and type of BMP, whether the practice is on public or private land, or other factors such as implications if treatment performance is not maintained (e.g., within drainage areas of sensitive receiving waters or species at risk habitat)? Will maintenance be performed in response to complaints or emergencies or will it be based on preset schedules and findings from routine inspections? The table below outlines several key level of service decisions that need to be made by a municipality prior to program design and is intended to help managers of stormwater infrastructure with planning for the future as their programs develop and evolve.

Level of Service for Municipal Stormwater BMP I&M Program

Level of Service	BMPs Included	Maintenance Tasks	Maintenance Frequency	Inspectors	Inspection Frequency	Feedback from Experience
	BMPs on public land and within rights-of-way	Repair immediate threats to public health and safety	React to complaints and emergencies	Rely on owners/ managers or their contractors to inspect, maintain and keep track of records.	Complaint driven	Anecdotal
	Sediment accumulation testing	x	x	x	x
	Surface infiltration rate testing		x		(x)
	Natural or simulated storm event testing		x		(x)
	Continuous monitoring		x		(x)
Note: (x) denotes indicators to be used for Performance Verification inspections only (i.e., not for Maintenance Verification inspections)

Responsibility of Maintenance Tasks

Check out the table below that highlights more examples of the differences between routine and structural maintenance tasks. One option for municipalities is to assign responsibility for routine maintenance tasks that are largely aesthetic in nature to the property owner while retaining responsibility for structural repairs. As municipal programs become more sophisticated, some routine maintenance tasks like sediment removal may be taken over by the municipality to avoid or prolong the need for more costly structural repairs.

Best management practice. State of the art methods or techniques used to manage the quantity and improve the quality of wet weather flow. BMPs include: source, conveyance and end-of-pipe controls.

Watercourses and Lake Ontario, to which Stormwater and Combined Sewer Overflows discharge.

Soil, sand and minerals washed from land into water, usually after rain. They pile up in reservoirs, rivers and harbors, destroying fish-nesting areas and holes of water animals and cloud the water so that needed sunlight might not reach aquatic plans. Careless farming, mining and building activities will expose sediment materials, allowing them to be washed off the land after rainfalls.

The rate at which stormwater percolates into the subsoil measured in inches per hour.

Soil, sand and minerals washed from land into water, usually after rain. They pile up in reservoirs, rivers and harbors, destroying fish-nesting areas and holes of water animals and cloud the water so that needed sunlight might not reach aquatic plans. Careless farming, mining and building activities will expose sediment materials, allowing them to be washed off the land after rainfalls.