City of Clemson Stormwater

This project consisted of replacing both pipes and catch basins leading from Wesley St to the ravine in front of the Day’s Inn. In this case, because multiple stormwater projects had been tied together without long term planning or engineering, the pipes and catch basins were not fully draining. This project corrected pipe sizing and slope, replaced failed corrugated metal pipes with HDPE, and corrected catch basin depth.    

The City of Clemson Partnered with Clemson Extension Water Resources to develop a project that would address issues with the lower portion of Nettles Park located in the Eighteen Mile Creek flood plain. In the original project area, pine trees lined the parking lot and would blanket the ground with needles. When the park flooded, these pine needles would accumulate on the dog park’s fence causing damage and requiring reconstruction. The trees were removed by a contractor to sell the wood for pulp. These trees were removed by a contractor to sell the wood for pulp. All other aspects of this project were completed with the work of City crews. Once the trees were cleared Clemson Resource Agents helped design a bio-Swale (the long grass swale) and a Bio-Cell (depressed and mulched area). Both of these systems help filter pollutants prior to them entering 18-mile creek from the lower parking lots and tennis courts. The system is also designed for easy maintenance and flood resistance by keeping sediment out of other designed systems. There is an info-graph located near the parking lot that describes how these systems work. This is also an exhibition project for developers to look at when trying to design on plant choices.

One of the requirements for having a detention pond is that it also has to be maintained and cleaned periodically. In this Project, the City had to remove approximately 3 feet of sediment from the bottom of the pond, correct drainage through the middle of the pond, and remove all of the woody vegetation that had grown in the pond because of poor maintenance. This was a purely maintenance activity for a City owned detention pond.

The first property located on the right-side of the sedgefield project had a large incised ditch which had steep drop offs caused by pipes installed at various elevations. The City purchased this property several years ago with the plan to install a water quality project. The new project lowers the slope of the ditch by changing the location of one of the pipes and elongating the ditch. Water quality comes from tree and grass plantings and the perpendicular barriers along the ditch path. The area will be mowed up to the edge of slope where the planting will be allowed to grow wild and help slow the water down and capture pollutants.

The Creekside project was an emergency replacement project. The pond outlet structure had completely failed and was causing the pond to overflow and overtop Creekside Dr.. The Fire marshall had shut the road down for fear of complete failure and citizen safety. The stormwater department determined that it would be best to install a pipe at the original elevation and location of the stream. The thought was that it would restore a portion of the ecosystem back to its original state while still allowing Creekside Dr. to have it’s loop. The pipe was sized for the watershed before it reaches the lake. The projects goal was to restore the stream and provide safe passage on Creekside Dr.. A guardrail was installed  on the lower portion of this project because of the low shoulder on that side of the road.

Due to the formation of sinkholes at the downstream headwall of the corrugated metal culvert on Clarendon Dr. the City was compelled to completely replace this pipe. Approximately 5 years ago, the pipe failed because of rusting. We were able to extend the life of the pipe by 5 years by adding a Milliken product called concrete cloth which is an epoxy reinforced cloth that replaced the rusted part of the pipe. In the future we plan to use this concrete cloth product earlier in existing pipe failures giving the City a longer service life for vulnerable pipes. The pipe was replaced with a new HDPE pipe and two headwalls.  

The existing failing culvert was a corrugated metal pipe with sinkholes forming near the headwall. This pipe failed in the way most corrugated metal pipes fail, the bottom of the pipe rusted almost completely away. The City replaced the old pipe with a HDPE pipe and was able to retain the existing headwalls.