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
	+	+	+	Inspectors send reports to responsible party and municipality	Annual or semiannual	+
	High priority, high visibility, and/or large BMPs on private land within easements and covered by agreements	Repair structural items: clogged or broken parts, erosion problems	Establish preset schedule for routine inspection and maintenance tasks	Co-inspections with public inspector and responsible party or their consultants	More frequent for high priority BMPs	Feedback used to modify list of acceptable BMPs based on maintenance or performance record
	+	Routine mowing, weeding, remove trash and debris, replace vegetation; and, (+)	+	Periodic Maintenance and Performance Verification inspections	Maintenance Verification inspections every 5 years	+
	All or most BMPs on private land within easements and covered by agreements	Includes retrofitting or reconstructing BMPs; and, (+)	Conduct structural repairs in response to Routine Operation, Maintenance and Performance Verification inspections	System of certified private inspectors	Performance Verification inspections every 15 years	Feedback used to modify municipal programs and BMP design guidance or standards
	Note: (+) denotes s that services are cumulative (level of service includes all previous tasks too).

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.

Routine Maintenance Vs. Structural Repair Tasks

Routine Maintenance Tasks	Structural Repair Tasks
Mowing, trimming, weeding vegetation Removal of trash and debris Replacing individual dead plants, seeding bare spots Core aeration Removal of sediment and debris accumulated in pretreatment practices, inlets or outlets Flushing pipes	Unclogging inlets, pipes, catchbasin sumps, filter beds, outlets Repairing or replacing broken or missing parts (e.g., pipes, wells, grates, manholes, valves, seals, pavements, curbs) Regrading to remedy extreme soil erosion or sedimentation Replacing large quantities of failed plantings, filter media or topsoil

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.

Box like underground concrete structure with openings in curb and gutter designed to collect runoff from streets and pavement.

Deposition of material of varying size, both mineral and organic away from its site of origin by the action of water, wind, gravity or ice.

Settling-out or deposition of particulate matter suspended in runoff.