Home About Us News Offices Contact Us
Go
Services Projects Resource Center Careers

Infrastructure Development

Developing Effective Storm Water Master Plans

City of Vista’s Documentation Investment Leads to Valuable Planning Tool
Creating a storm water master plan requires great tenacity. Since storm drain systems are not often operated as a utility, improvements may be under-funded, and documents may be hard to locate.

“Unlike water and wastewater systems, which are a primary function of municipalities, storm water systems are often minimally managed,” said Noah Walker, Dudek’s principal utility planner. “Storm water system facilities’ locations are typically not well-mapped, and it can take three to four times as much time to collect all the necessary data to develop a master plan.”

City of Vista’s Storm Water Planning
The City of Vista, which serves approximately 18.5 square miles and 90,000 residences, undertook the challenge of streamlining its storm drainage system data, ultimately integrating it with its wastewater collection system information.

“With new storm water regulations, sinkholes, development and urban renewal in flood corridors, changed county hydrology method, land use changes, and decayed infrastructure, we needed a comprehensive GIS-based inventory and master plan update,” said Carlos Mendoza, the City of Vista’s senior engineer. “We need to know at a glance the basics of each facility, and we need the tools to move from reactive to proactive management.”

To address these needs, the City of Vista undertook an approach involving:
  • Creating a comprehensive public storm water GIS. According to Walker, this included research and analysis of wall maps, fire maps, and as-built drawings as well as field investigations.
  • Creating a tracking system for the city’s best management practices (BMPs).
  • Constructing the link-node analytical model with GIS.
  • Updating the city’s storm water Capital Improvement Program (CIP).
  • Integrating the GIS with the maintenance management system.
  • Analyzing the operational and CIP budget and preparing a fiscal analysis report that included recommendations for funding sources.
  • Generating discharge citywide under the new county method to assist in public and private planning of storm drain improvements.

“By investing in a storm water GIS and updating the storm water and wastewater master plans together, we will have the tools we need to proactively manage our gravity infrastructure. It also creates a model for GIS-integrated management of other public infrastructure, improving operations and management in many peripheral ways. It’s a snowball effect,” concluded Mendoza.

SERVICES

Newsletter Sign Up
Don't miss September's issue! Read about as-needed construction management, deferred maintenance issues and more.


Latest Dudek Headlines


  Dudek©2006    Site Map    Newsletter Sign Up