Green Infrastructure Maintenance

By its very nature, green infrastructure is designed to capture water and accumulate sediment and debris. Whether you are an individual with a small rain garden or a large municipality with thousands of stormwater BMPs, a major (and often overlooked) component of sustainable stormwater management is maintenance. Frequent inspections and proper maintenance, when warranted, help to keep rain gardens, sand filters, bioretention facilities, vegetated swales, etc. operating effectively. It is even required for developers and MS4 jurisdictions to inspect and maintain their stormwater facilities to meet their permit requirements.

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Luckily, EQR is here to help! Every year, EQR's Ecological Services Division designates up to 8 full-time crews to perform stormwater BMP inspections and maintenance on thousands of facilities. We hold multi-year contracts with numerous County government clients but we also perform one-off maintenance jobs regularly as well. Our stormwater experts know what to look for to diagnose and repair inlet and outlet structures, excessive sediment accumulation in forebays and ponds, leaky or failing berms, unwanted plants, etc. We even build and maintain green roofs!

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Bioretentions and LID 

These systems include rain gardens, bioretention facilities, infiltration and filtration swales, gravel wetlands, high flow media systems, permeable pavements, cisterns and proprietary filter systems. LID/ESD systems are designed to have the smallest footprint possible, while still maximizing functions such as pollutant filtering, heavy metal removal, thermal pollution reduction, reduction of high energy flow levels, and evapotranspiration. Often in urban areas, these unique multifunctional features provide habitat for birds and beneficial insects in an attractive native landscape. 

EQR was an early adopter of Low Impact Development (LID) and Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) techniques in the construction industry. With over 25 years installing and maintaining many different types of LID/ESD projects, our trained crews understand that these facilities are carefully designed to retain water and filter pollutants. They also must be carefully built to function properly without clogging, blowing out, or otherwise failing. Many bioretention areas and other LID systems require underdrains, (piping), cleanouts and observation wells and stone storage layers.  Most include highly engineered soils, mulch, and native plants. We routinely follow quality control procedures to make sure our projects meet regulatory and design parameters.