Calvin Goes Underground for Stormwater Investigation

Last week, a NewsChannel 9 investigation discovered a $100,000 fine against the city of Chattanooga, for being slow to correct violations involving its Tennessee storm water permit.

Right now, the city doesn't have a current permit, but is being allowed to legally manage storm water runoff under its old, expired permit.

Chattanooga has to have every storm water drain catalogued.. not having that done, is costing you almost $5,000,000 and five years to fix..

We decided to go underground to see the progress of that correction.

We took a look at a large box culvert on Jordan Drive, off Shallowford Road, across the street from the Bi-Lo parking lot. It doesn't have a name to speak of, but city storm water experts know it as Culvert Number D-148-D-213.

The culvert is one of many culverts, ditches, manholes, tunnels and catch basins that the city built to carry storm water towards the Tennessee River. Chattanooga is required by the state to catalog every place where storm water runs off in town, so the city hired technicians from Earthworx to do that.

The crew first sets up a G-P-S satellite hookup to gather data.. then, there is a visual inspection by technicians Jason Buckner and Shane Terry. The area is then measured and logged.. "2-48, by 144," Jason says to Shane, who then logs the reading. That information is then sent back via GPS to the Earthworx office, to the city storm water database..

Back in the office, Dixon Brackett, Earthworx President, enters the information into the city's storm water database. Of the database, "it's going to tell the city exactly where every bit of their storm water runoff starts from and travels to."

This five million dollar project is the only major thing that's currently holding up Chattanooga's new storm water permit. "This has been our critical path for compliance, this one cataloging process of every storm water runoff location" says City Engineer Bill Payne. "Everything else, we've been able to do in much shorter time frame."

Back on site, both technicians Buckner and Terry place an identifying plate on the culvert, and photograph it, then, it's on to the next drainage outlet about two miles away. Once again, the G-P-S satellite link is hooked up, and a visual inspection is made of a catch basin. On site with us now, Ms. Brackett tells us "what the technicians are looking for is pipe type and pipe diameter."

"It does have a skimmer," Mr. Buckner tells Mr. Terry, "Zero in, and one out." That means, zero pipes coming into the catch basin, and one pipe going out. Mr. Terry then enters that into the system.

Again, that information is relayed via satellite back to the office, along with the exact location of the catch basin.

So far, Earthworx has mapped all 84-thousand of these locations in Chattanooga..

"The scope and the magnitude of this project is so large," says Mr. Payne, "that we had to do it quickly, but do it right."

Whether the city has done it right, will be up to the Tennessee Department of Conservation and Environment. Paul Davis, the director of T-DEC's Division of Water Pollution Control says, the city IS making a good-faith effort to meet the state's September 30th deadline..

Cataloging the storm water drains is a long process, and it's taken Chattanooga five years to complete. A special provision in the old storm water permit, allows the city to continue operating its storm water system until a new permit is issued. Since Chattanooga is the only large city in Tennessee to have gone this long without a current permit, Mr. Davis says, the rules are being scrutinized closer, for everybody else.