We have a team of professionals that are specifically dedicated to all aspects of surface water management analysis, design, and permitting. The dedicated nature of this team allows them to stay up to date on current issues and advancements related to surface water management. They provide a wide variety of services including surface water master planning; retrofit analysis and design; treatment system design; permitting; hydrologic, hydraulic, and water quality monitoring; flow, and stage monitoring.
What We Provide
Whether it is a single watershed, a county, or a multi-county analysis, we have the experience and expertise to provide the needed master plan. Master planning provides a look at the whole and not one or two facets of a watershed. It begins with the physical properties of boundary, ground elevations, right-of-way, easements, ground cover, stream, and overland flow characteristics and continues with calculated capacities for conveying and treating runoff and finishing with needed improvements, level of service, and financing the work. The work may be operations and maintenance or capital improvements. These expenditures are to maintain and improve, where needed, the conveyance capacity, water quality, and native vegetation where feasible physically, socially, and economically.
Retrofit projects can be some of the most challenging and complex. Many times, it is not physically or financially feasible to completely fix an existing problem. Our team of surface water professionals understand this and are able to work with our clients and interested third parties to come up with the best financially feasible solution. Water quality is now in the forefront of all retrofit projects. The days of fixing a flooding problem by just improving the conveyance capacity are gone. Water treatment must be incorporated into the solution or the solution will not get through permitting. The flooding and water quality problems must be solved simultaneously even though they often work at odds to each other. Our experience and understanding of the hydraulics and hydrology and surface water BMPs helps us solve both problems with one solution.
Best Management Practices (BMPs) are needed for most projects whether agricultural, commercial, industrial, institutional, or residential. Some BMPs are physical barriers to separate uses or reduce the quantity of pollutants into a water body. Other BMPs are changes in management practices such as sweeping, fertilization, having non-mow buffers, etc. The choice of the BMPs is based on the needs generated by the proposed development and the client’s particular aesthetic look for the particular development all while making the most economical selection.
The Johnson Engineering surface water team has modeling experience on a wide range of projects. Our experience helps identify the needs and provide the services required for each individual project. We can utilize spreadsheet calculation for relatively small projects that are not anticipated to evoke much controversy. For larger projects that include significant third-party interest, our team is able to utilize complex multifaceted models to answer a wide variety of questions from permitting agencies and interested third parties.
Our surface water team works with local, state, and federal permitting agencies on a wide range of projects on an almost daily basis. Our experience ranges from a small turn lane addition to several thousand-acre mixed-use developments and virtually everything in between. This variety of experiences gives us a unique understanding of the agencies, their staff, and their rules. Our continual contact with agency staff and their permitting processes allow us to stay up to date on any permitting changes that might occur. This allows us to help our clients by updating them on policy changes that could impact their projects.
The increased scrutiny associated with today’s projects make data much more important. Our surface water team understands this and is able to assist our clients by creating and implementing monitoring plans that increase the understanding of existing surface water management systems. We work with our clients, permitting agencies and other interested parties to create monitoring plans that satisfy all parties involved. After completing the monitoring plan our experienced team can install, maintain, and monitor each piece of equipment through the life of the project. After completing the monitoring, our team is able to interpret that information and utilize it to establish water table elevations, calibrate models, and facilitate permitting.
Each development or redevelopment of the land surface requires addressing the quality of surface water discharge. Simpler projects may only require the presumptive volume calculations treating the first inch of runoff. Other projects require more detailed analysis due to special needs including filtration marshes for regional treatment. See us about your specific treatment needs.
While these governmental entities must follow rules for operations of cities and counties, they have their own rules that set them apart. The particular needs of these governmental bodies are well understood based on working with them for nearly four decades. We are ready to assist you with your district establishment and continuing operations.
The best water quality improvement projects are surface water retrofit projects that use a series of diverse natural systems that improve upon one another. These projects often incorporate and enhance the local wetland systems by lengthening wetland hydroperiods, enhancing wildlife habitat, increasing biodiversity, and providing groundwater recharge without increasing the flood potential of the upstream communities. Accomplishing this requires a multi-disciplinary approach that includes all sub-areas of expertise within surface water and groundwater management. We are well-versed in the nutrient removal calculators regularly used in the FDEP TMDL program and know how to represent the various filter marsh designs in the calculators. Our experience, knowledge, and expertise in modeling plus real-life experience are invaluable resources when using out-of-the-box solutions not commonly found in the literature.