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Stormwater

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1. What does the acronym “ACE” stand for?

a.    In 2007, during the initial City Council work sessions and the development of the 30-year plan, the newly formed Stormwater Advisory Board liked the tagline of “Archdale’s Community Effort” which became the basis for the evolving program.

b.    By 2010, the tagline evolved to “Archdale’s Citizens Excel.” 

c.    Although both taglines are used today, the concept behind both definitions guide the annual changes made every year as the program continues to evolve.

2. How is the ACE Integrated Stormwater Management Program involved potential development?

The Stormwater Manager is typically involved early in the process.  Under the presumption that regulatory requirements will be met during the project, several basic requirements will be provided.

a.    The Stormwater Manager will typically provide general information during a typical pre-Technical Review Committee meeting.  This meeting is extremely important and defines expectations and processes through construction and final walk through and closeout of the project with the State of North Carolina.

b.    The Stormwater Manager indicates that his role is more substantial during construction and at the end of construction in which development phases are more clearly defined based on information being prepared by the developer and/or engineer.

c.    The Stormwater Manager encourages on-site meetings and site visits all through the phasing of the project.  However, a minimum of one project site visit is required before a yellow copy of the Certificate of Plan Approval is provided to begin construction.

3. During the initial stages, the developer will acknowledge and submit basic information for use in creating the project file.

a.    A general digital conceptual drawing in AutoCAD compatible format, the latest edition will be provided to the city.  When this file is reviewed, it will primarily establish that the scale and spatial coordinates are correct and compatible with the City of Archdale Mapping System.  In addition, an overlay of the site will be reviewed for impact to the environment.

b.    At the time of submission of the drawing, a file name will be established for future submissions.  Below is the typical naming convention:

i.     [911 Addressing of the Site]- [Project Name on Title Block]-[Acres]-[Submission]

ii.    Example – 222 South Main Street-City by the Stream-3A-MM-DD-YYYY

iii.    Only the date will change on future digital regardless of .dwg, .pdf, .xlsx, etc.

c.    Draft version of the Financial Responsibility/Ownership Form (REV 21 April 2022)

d.    Draft version of Stormwater Agreement

e.    Current Deed of Property to be developed.  During this phase, multiple deeds may be involved. During construction, a recombined deed will be required before the project construction starts.

f.    Typically, the Stormwater Manager will provide general feedback during an in-person office meeting or a telephone conversation which will typically include the following:

i.    The City of Archdale does not specify a specific nomenclature for attributes in AutoCAD. During the review of the file, the Prospector tab is assessed noting which features have been used by the design professional.

ii.    As a rule, the pipe network for stormwater conveyances located both on the site and in the right-of-way are absolutely required for export to a file geo-database which houses the City of Archdale Stormwater Inventory.  For example, a design professional decides to pipe a system along the right-of-way of a project converting an ephemeral roadside swale to a subsurface pipe system.  The pipe system is considered an encroachment of the project into the existing right-of-way.

iii.    General feedback concerning the interaction of pervious and impervious features on the site will be provided.  Landscaping on a site will typically meet zoning requirements but will also be integral as a component of the “Stormwater Control System” and the evolving “Stormwater Control Regulations” mandated by both the State of North Carolina and the Environmental Protection Agency.

4. How are the digital files provided by the developer/engineer used?

a.    As mentioned above, the digital file submitted starts the process of creating a file for future use.

i.    A copy of the original file contained in an e-mail to the Stormwater Manager is placed in an internal directory entitled “Connection of As-Built Drawings to Geo-database.”

ii.    This file is available for scale and spatial review relative to the Record Drawings and Stormwater Inventory Catalog.

iii.    A directory is also created in the Construction Drawings file which may be an abbreviated version of the file name designated “Construction Drawings [File Name].  This file will contain a chronological file of digital documents received over the course of the project.

iv.    Digital AutoCAD compatible drawing files received will not have any layers frozen or restricted and will not have a digital version of the design professional’s seal.  Digital files received are typically marked preliminary – not for construction.

v.    At the end of the project, a final digital drawing file will be submitted, and a hard copy sealed drawing will be submitted.  At this time, the previous As-Built drawings created by the contractor during the construction will have been reviewed by the design professional – the digital drawing updated – and submitted to the city, thus changing over to a digital “Record Drawing” which will be compared to the hard copy sealed drawing for final closeout.

vi.    Because the digital record drawing becomes part of the city-wide system – different components of the file will be exported to geo-database for other uses, this drawing is not sealed. Please note that the components will be checked against the sealed hard copy submitted to ensure that both are the same.  Pipe network systems will become part of the citywide pipe network system.  Impervious surface areas such as building footprints, curb and gutter conveyances, surface flow pavement areas, and landscaping areas become used for citywide impervious updates.

vii.    Finally, the review of the drawing will be field verified with a final meeting on-site with the developer, design professional, and city staff in preparation of final confirmation of punch list items and closeout of project.

5. Why is the name of the project so specific?

a.    The first part of the project name is the 911 addressing.  This part of the project name is crucial.  The City of Archdale will typically contact the county for a new address if necessary.  The City of Archdale uses See Click Fix for documentation of the project which relies on GPS information.  The contractors during construction can report information about the project by accessing an android device or an iOS device.  Contractors’ report information in the Site Construction Runoff category which documents erosion control installation, repairs, and maintenance while construction is active.  Contractors’ report information in the Post Construction Site Runoff category when they are constructing a stormwater control system subject to annual third-party reporting.  In addition, the State needs a reference point when State personnel decide to name a project other than our classification.

b.    The second part of the project name is a project descriptor name.  This is typically parenthetical to the naming and is usually consistent with the engineered drawing title block.

c.    The third part is the designation of the rounded-up number of acres without decimal points.

d.    The fourth part is the date of transmission of the digital document according to MM-DD-YYYY.

6. What are common errors in the preparation of the Financial Responsibility/Ownership Form?

a.    The project name in Part A does not match the first two components of the naming protocol described above.

b.    The physical address in Part A for highway and street is not the same as the addressing used in the project name.

c.    The reported longitude and latitude are not in decimal degrees, or it is not located approximately at the center of the construction entrance.

d.    The acreage on the financial responsibility form is different for the acreage on the drawing.

e.    Landowner of record does not match the name on the deed (s) provided.

f.    County of the notary does not match the seal of the notary.

7. What are common errors on the Stormwater Agreement?

Specific details transferred to the Stormwater Agreement are not in agreement with the information on the Financial Responsibility Form.

8. When do I get a yellow copy of the Certificate of Approval?

a.    Certificate of Approvals’ will only be issued when a complete package is received by the City and all documents matches including a COC from the State of North Carolina.  A not-for- construction white copy of the certificate of approval will be issued to meet the requirements of the Notice of Intent application with the State of North Carolina.

b.    Part of the process prior to the issuance of a yellow copy of the Certificate of Approval is a review of the installed perimeter erosion control features. Initial verification of the number of erosion control features, design professional and city staff site visit confirming modifications made by the contractor during installation of measures due to in-situ conditions have been appropriately documented.

c.    During this on-site review, design professional, contractor, and city staff emphasize the difference between “making an effort by the contractor to protect the environmental impact of construction” and “demonstrating the effectiveness of the measures used by the contractor to protect the environmental impact of construction.”

9. How often should See Click Fix be used for the project?

a.    It is recommended that the contractor use the See Click Fix category under construction site runoff on a daily basis.  A contractor is required to check the project site daily while work is proceeding.

b.    Currently, projects which provide documentation daily in which work is occurring have minimal problems with the effectiveness of measures.     

10. What is required for the issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy provided by Randolph County?

The City of Archdale currently has agreements with Randolph County and Guilford County for the issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy.  This Certificate of Occupancy is subject to the following:

a.    Public Works personnel have received the closed-circuit television (CCTV) video documentation provided by the contractor for subsurface conveyances.

b.    Public Works has verified condition of subsurface conveyances and have provided feedback for repairs; Typically, this review is scheduled between two and four weeks prior to the application of the final inch of asphalt on road surfaces which have subsurface pipes below.

c.    A walk through the site with the developer, design, professional, and city staff has occurred, and the list of items have been uploaded to See Click Fix.  Completed items will be changed from open (orange indicator) to closed (blue indicator).

d.    Once all the above is completed, the county will be notified indicating that all construction requirements have been met and a request to the State has been made for a Notice of Termination.

11. What is the purpose of the asset tabular table on phase construction drawings?

The asset table identifies all infrastructure installed on the phase and the cost of the installation of assets during construction which will be transferred over to the City of Archdale for future maintenance.

a.    What are the linear feet of road constructed in the phase to be transferred to the City of Archdale, and how much did it cost to construct identified by street?

b.    What are the linear feet of storm drainage infrastructure and sanitary sewer infrastructure constructed in the phase to be transferred to the City of Archdale, and how much did it cost to construct identified by pipe size and structure size?

c.    What are the linear feet of water distribution infrastructure constructed in the phase to be transferred to the City of Archdale, and how much did it cost to construct identified by pipe size?

d.    Information provided on the plans will be used for the formal request made to the City Council of Archdale to accept the infrastructure for maintenance.

12. How are the permit Operation & Maintenance Plan(s) of the ACE Integrated Stormwater Management Plan affected by mandated revisions from NC State & the Environmental Protection Agency initiatives?

As the ACE Integrated Stormwater Management Program is a fully implemented program with an implantation date of January 2, 2008, revisions to day activities are reflected through modifications to processes during annual review of the program.  Concurrent review of the program meeting our Best Management Practices documented through our current online portal relate back to the volumes of documentation maintained over the years both in binders and digital directories.  Refinement to the program relates back to the schematic of the interaction of the program maintained on the Stormwater Management page of the website.

a.    A review of internal procedural items takes place during the final annual meeting of the Stormwater Advisory Board.  Currently, that meeting occurs during the last quarter of the year.

b.    The review assesses the three complexes currently owned and operated by the City of Archdale.  Namely, the Municipal Facilities Complex located on Balfour Drive, the Public Works Complex located on Old School Road, and the Parks and Recreation Complex located on Park Drive.

c.    The review also considers the connectivity of the interactive infrastructure associated with the road network and related associative infrastructure.

d.     To date, no major modifications have been required to the initial scope of the program.

e.    Only modifications to the program on a continuous basis has associated with converting from a Microsoft Outlook format to the resident and contractor driven online portal currently being used.

f.    Maintenance of such changes are reflected in the minutes of the meetings and added to the current website which meets the minimum requirement of annual updates.

g.    Since the program has exceeded the retention of documents standard, tracking review of the program is maintained and transparent associated with the current 27 Best Management Practices located on the Stormwater Management page of the official City of Archdale website under either Stormwater Management Plan Tab or Annual Report Tab as well as the Stormwater FAQs Tab Section J of the Annual Report associated with self audit.

13. How is the current edition of AutoCAD submissions used by the City of Archdale?

 Since inception of the ACE Integrated Stormwater Management Program, AutoCad drawings have been required as part of the project submission process based on the latest updates of the modular format of the program.  In recent years, the evolution of the program has included a better interface with ArcGIS.  This has allowed the City of Archdale to remain in compliance with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit allowing us to meet the requirements of updating mapping by way of the project closeout process and the issuing of the State mandated Notice of Intent.

a.  The City of Archdale does not make any distinction between large projects or small projects.  If a project file includes an AutoCAD compatible file, features related to the stormwater pipe network will be utilized allowing for a transfer of information from AutoCAD to ArcGIS.

b. Due to the nature of the digital document, the digital record drawing is submitted as part of the close-package with the updated As-Built information provided by the contractor during construction.  Although a hard copy of the Record Drawing with the engineer’s seal is submitted at closeout, a unfrozen digital file is submitted without the engineer’s seal.  The City of Archdale does not specifically write a template for attributes of the AutoCad file due to the significant variances in engineer’s preferences.  However, due to the fluid nature of the evolution of programs and permits, the city has been able to refer to older projects and extract information for permitting.

c. The City of Archdale does not share any digital files and refers inquiries for such information to the Record Drawing design engineer.  When hard copy pdf files are provided as a result of such an inquiry, processing of the request may be subject to a fee based on current reimbursement practices.

14. Does the City of Archdale have a proprietary set of drawings for castings?

 No. The City of Archdale does allow for an or equal submittal from the manufacturer of castings.  See example of drawing approved below depicted on drawing plans submitted.

15. What typically happens when an unsealed AutoCad digital record drawing and AutoCad hard copy record drawing is submitted?

Of course, the simple answer is relatively easy.  Both drawings are checked for accuracy based on field observations in the field and comparing what is physically onsite.  If the digital, hard copy, and field observations do not match, the design professional will be contacted requesting that an additional quality control/quality assurance check be made before the next submission.  Below is an example of a request for a revision.

1. In the example below, the design professional submitted the revised drawing by electronic means indicating the boundary of the edge of pavement based on as-built information provided by the contractor on 12/5/22.
2. The notation on the drawing may be incorrect and require changing from “record” to “as-built” based on the context.  In addition, the sum of the polylines on the drawing are on the order of approximately 350 linear feet.
3. During the field investigation, the length of the line is significantly larger than the actual in-situ conditions on the order of approximately 40% along the linear length of the polyline.

Although a minor error and was able to be corrected quickly by the design professional,  this type of error was cause for a delay in both the closeout of the site and if not corrected, a delay in the issuance of the Certificate of Occupancy.

16. How can a contractor remove an erosion control fence during construction?

The simple answer is "once groundcover is established."  However, this may happen in stages during construction.  While placing perimeter sidewalk on a site is a good example of when this occurs. The boundary silt fence initially installed prior to sale of the lot can be subject to a considerable amount of abuse.  Because maintenance of the erosion control fence is a requirement, contractor's typically are instructed to removed the unsightly - unkept silt fence - seed and straw the perimeter between the road and the newly installed sidewalk.  As shown below, this is a case where the approach works very well.  The new sidewalk is above the site and any transport in sediment is directed towards an existing grading area on the single lot.

17. How does the "effectiveness of measure" relate to "making an effort?"

Some contractors often refer to making an effort based on the plans rather assessing the effective of the measures.  For example, placing a  curbside drop inlet protection of a newly constructed road which will be accepted on the surface would be considered making an effort.  However, there are challenges that occur which raise the question of effectiveness of the measures.  This challenge typically occurs at the initial grading adjacent to a sag in the newly installed road.  Below a contractor was required to clean up under two different conditions.  The photograph on the left depicts a heavy sediment load in sack and not on the bottom of the box.  The photograph on the right depicts a heavy sediment load in the sack and on the bottom of the box.  Both measures in the sag of the road met the criteria of "making an effort."  However, both measures in this particular situation required moving resources from production to clean up.

18. How do contractors' typically address sediment transport internal to a project site?

Contractors' in compliance with the guidance of the NCG01 suggestions address items regularly on an active construction site.  Again, sometimes modifications to approved plans are required based on the criteria of "making an effort" and "effectiveness of the measures installed."  Fortunately, contractors' who install measures internal to the site provide for a tiered set of protections before transport beyond the approved site becomes an issue.  In the example below, after a significant event above design criteria, a surgical maintenance repair was required.  The contractors' approved over the specified time following the event involved an initial removal of transported sediment to the sag in the road using flat head shovels and cleaning of catch basin sediment capture.  Following initial removal, residual was allowed to dry then second pass involved mechanical brushing.  Some contractors, in small areas, have accomplished this by using a "stiff bristle push broom" and a "leaf blower."  Larger areas have been addressed using mechanized equipment with "broom attachments."  Typically, the drying effect determines the number of passes required to remove "turbid water transport" in the surgical areas.  High turbid water transport is usually addressed by the contractor adding additional measures routing water before it reaches a rock outlet.