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: stormwater
Flood Zone Game
Over the last several months, I've been working on a drainage course built on the 3D GameLab platform. The purpose of the course is to offer people information about drainage and flooding so they can better understand these issues and how to protect themselves and their property. The 3D GameLab framework, developed by Boise State…
Modeling Stormwater BMPs in Second Life
Recently I met another civil engineer who works for a county in the State of Washington. He contacted me through the virtual world of Second Life where he is known as Jered Spitteler. Jered has been building a model in Second Life of one of the rain gardens maintained by his agency. Fortunately I…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 60
Day 60 Culvert Lining Project Today was the day the liner was delivered for our culvert lining project. The placement of it seemed to go well. The contractor will finish grouting the annular space tomorrow. A resident did stop by to tell us we didn't know what we were doing, and it would never work,…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Days 34 through 38
In an effort to catch up on my postings due to attending the APWA conference, I'm combining all last week into one post then following up tomorrow with the first two days of this week. Days 34 through 36 Day 34 was spent attending the APWA conference in Denver. You can read a short summary…
2011 APWA Conference – Day 2
Below is a report of the 2nd Day of the National APWA Conference: General Session: Becoming a Community Builder – Leadership in Changing Times Day two of the 2011 APWA conference started with a general session, Becoming a Community Builder – Leadership in Changing Times, with keynote speaker, Ian Hill. He began by sharing…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 25
Day 25 Water Main Extension Most of the first half of my morning was spent working on a cost estimate for the water main extension I have designed. I also filled out all the IEPA permits for the project and had our water superintendent sign them. Then I filled out the EcoCat to determine…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 14
Day 14 This morning we started out handling a concern from a resident whose driveway was poured last week as part of the road project. The contractor was supposed to have taken off the barricades yesterday. But for some reason, they never got over there to open up the drive. So we had to call…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 10
Day 10 Today was a great day – well most days are pretty good, but a lot of really good things happened today! There were some minor tasks I took care of like arranging for our interns to help out the water/sewer department by shooting some elevations for a sump pump line they were repairing…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 5
Day 5 The main items grabbing my attention today involved the following: Striping Today the stripers were in town placing the thermoplastic paint on a few of our newly paved roads. Normally I don't get too involved in the operation because we have a project engineer and technician inspecting and managing the project. But today,…