Before you begin your new construction project you need to know all the new standards, of both the EPA-(Environmental Protection Agency) and the State’s Clean Water Act standards. Since each state has their own standards for specifics, I will focus on California’s they it not the highest, perhaps the latest standards nations wide.
1) Research - before one start a construction project one need to know the local county, city, and state’s standards. If you have the time you will need to go online and to the county seat, city planner dept, to gather all the rules and regulations. Gather names of the people and contact information in case you have future questions. You need to calculate the actual acres size of your project. To do this you will need to gather information about the property involved. You will need base maps, parcel maps and farm data information on file. You may need to go to the county records to get copies of your parcel information or if you have a computer you may be able to get some of the information online. You will also need to gather Fema - (Federal Emergency Management Agency) flood maps & Fema studies. If you do not have time to gather this information you can hire a consultant someone that knows the business, and has experience doing the research to help you.
2) Calculating the layout of the land area to be disturbed. You will need the elevations of the existing ground this is called a Topo. If you are familiar in gathering this data or if not you may hire a consultant. You will also need to know the type of soil and the condition of the layers of strata types in you area of your project. Most consultants have Soil Engineers they work with to get a soil’s report based on the amount of square footage of soil to be disturbed for your construction project. If you have a CAD program, which can help calculate that square footage of soil to be disturbed. Most companies have land surveyors they use to help gather this information. But try to gather all information prior to hiring your land surveyor such as utilities, creeks, swells, wells, ponds, etc..
3) Existing: With the Topo, you should now know all the correct names of the creeks, rivers and drainage patterns of your construction site in a natural setting. This will help you with meeting all of the multiple standards, rules, regulations required to successfully complete your construction project. Now with all of your research and calculations, maps, documents, reports and studies you and now get your SWPPP created.
4) Proposed: If you have a CAD program this will help greatly with all phases of construction in addition to meeting the compliance such as SWPPP-Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan. This is a comprehensive, specific plan which will need to be thoroughly played out in stages or phases. Unless you are familiar with doing a construction project before from start to finish you will need help with a multitude of help from consultants, planners, surveyors, civil engineers, soils engineers, arborist, and depending on the location of the project you may need to include the Core of Army Engineers. Do not be overwhelming here experience plays a major role here. This all depends on what your construction project involves, besides the location. If the other steps 1-3 were done thoroughly then this step should not be too overwhelming but will take most of your time and money.
5) Scheduling: Scheduling most all construction project need this to be a priority. keeping track of when something needs to be done and who will do it. This is critical and makes or breaks a good well planned construction project. Everyone from the temporary laborer to the CEO and Owner need to be onboard with this.
The major reason construction projects fail is because the schedule gets off tract and miss communication. Occasionally a contractor decides not to follow the SWPPP and this creates a big problem for the project management.
I have seen big dollar fines and projects shut downs because of miss guided egos.
6) Monitoring: This need to be conveyed to everyone involved in the construction project. Who is responsible for what? A good SWPPP will have who will do what and when. Who will document it? Until the state signs off on the final release this will need to be thoroughly documented.
7) Communication: Someone needs to be on top of what is happening with your construction project and communicate with all parties involved.
Most Civil Engineering firms have a Communication Documentation form which is logged in to each folder. Along with just communication a structure on who, when, and how information gets distributed. SWPPP’s Coordinators usually have a solid chart showing approval needs prior release of data based on need to know basis. Confirmation for example send email needs to be followed up with a phone call to insure the email was received and documentation of this final check..
8) Record keeping: This need to be monitored on a regular basis. Someone need to go to the folder and make sure all the forms are there and complete. These records are legal records not having them is a fine, and could mean big money. There are storage companies which will guarantee your records will be safe from fire or water or what ever.
9) Reporting like a patient in a hospital observation needs to be documented by everyone at every level and every discipline. If something is reported early the patient may live. Signage on the construction job site needs to be incorporated from non-authorized personnel on a job site to vandals. A phone number and email address needs to be provided so anyone can report anything. And a procedure on how to handle each should be clearly spelled out in the SWPPP & Communicated in the meetings.
10) Photos of the Construction job site need to be done thought out the entire construction project. Dated and documented and stored.
