Recently I wrote about the draft release of Post-Development Stormwater Runoff Performance Standards for Illinois. And in discussions with colleagues over the last few weeks, I have not heard any positive support from anyone who has a professional background in stormwater management or regulation. Instead the consensus among stormwater professionals regarding the draft is that the…
Tag: development
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 59
Day 59 Budget Analysis As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had our intern create a spreadsheet so I could track the money that has been spent in the accounts related to my division. Today I started going through that document checking it against invoices and making sure each entry was coded correctly. I…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 44 and 45
Day 44 Hopefully today will be the last day I have to combine more than one day in a post – finally getting somewhat caught up. Today, I went through more emails. And I finished up the final approval letter for that development I worked on last Friday – it is for an industry in…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Days 39 to 43
Day 39 through 43 Day 39—Monday, Sept. 26 On Monday I attended our staff development meeting. We discussed several of the projects that are either under review or construction. We also talked about the challenge of helping people understand and follow through our development process which is as follows: during the concept stage, our staff…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 29
Day 29 Automatic Meter Reading Research For about a year we've been researching automatic meter read (AMR) systems. Because our neighboring communities to the north and south have also been going through this process, we decided to combine our efforts and collaborate on the research. So as a group we've met with several vendors over…
A Day in the Life of an Engineer – Day 18
Day 18 Unfortunately today I don't have much to post because I took part of the day off to take care of things at home. But this morning, before I left work, I did work again on some permits finalizing the utility permits. Also, because of some new information related to the development for which…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 16
Day 16 Back to work after a weekend of working on a presentation I'm giving in September at the Illinois Association of Highway Engineers conference in Normal, Ill. I'm really looking forward to the event, and if anyone reading this is going make sure to say hi at the conference! Development Meeting So today was…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 6
Day 6 Staff Development Meeting This morning we had our staff development meeting where all representatives of all departments meet to discuss active developments in our city. Today we talked about several proposed and on-going prospects along with some discussion of proposed changes to regulations. One of these issues related to the creation and management…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 4
Day 4 Safety Meeting Once a month the public works department holds a safety meeting for everyone in the department. Today's topic was fire safety. We learned about the fire triangle: oxygen, heat, and fuel. We also learned that there are four classes of fire: Class A: Ordinary combustibles such as paper Class B: Flammable…
U.S. Army Corps Revamps Permit Application Process
Those of you who navigate the U.S. Army Corp of Engineer's (USACE) permit application process might want to check out their new, online site designed to guide applicants through each step of filing a permit application. Visitors to the Website, located at http://www.usace.army.mil/CECW/Documents/avatar2/index.html, are greeted by an avatar who explains the site and offers advice for…