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1. How do I prevent drainage issues on my property?

There are several things you can do to prevent drainage issues on your property.

• Prevent litter and debris from entering easements and roadside ditches, and culverts
• Avoid raking, blowing, or dumping leaves or grass clipping in the roadside ditches and culverts
• Keep roadside ditches and culverts easily accessible during property repairs
• Do not obstruct roadside ditches and culverts or pathways with privacy fencing
• Move structures and sheds away from roadside ditches and culverts and easements
• Note any erosion and remove foreign objects from around any stormwater ponds monthly. Have a professional engineer inspect your stormwater pond every one to two years
• Consider converting turf grass around your pond to a native plant buffer zone. Work with a landscape contractor to incorporate native plants to stabilize shorelines
• Do not apply fertilizers and pesticides around your stormwater pond

If you choose to hire a professional to perform maintenance and/or repairs on your culvert, it is your responsibility to ensure that they obtain the proper permits/permissions for the work and follow all required procedures.  

2. How often should I perform maintenance?

Properties with roadside swales often have driveway culverts and pipes that convey stormwater under the driveway apron within the right-of-way to channel runoff. Maintenance of these pipes and adjacent areas is generally the property owner's responsibility. 

We recommend that homeowners inspect and clean driveway culverts regularly: quarterly or more frequently. We you to check your pipe before big storms, when you witness standing water in the swale, or the pipe is 20% or more full of sediment.

3. Why is it important to maintain my culvert and bar ditch?

For streets without curbs and gutters, roadside ditches are key to maintaining roadway drainage, which is important to ensuring the long life of the roadway by:

• Preventing erosion of the roadway
• Preventing saturation of the sub base
• Preventing damage to roadway structure

Roadside ditches should be cleaned on a regular basis to prevent them from silting up and forcing water back onto the travel way surface or into the subbase material of the pavement structure.

• In sections of the travel way where runoff drains directly onto shoulders, water may collect along the edge of the travel way. Water on a portion of the roadway can result in drivers losing control of their vehicle, particularly when braking in an emergency. This can happen when the inside tires are in contact with the roadway surface and the braking ability of the outside tires is hindered by the water.
• Water can pond on the outside edge of the travel way surface when debris, particularly aggregate and soil on turf shoulders, builds up. As debris accumulates on the shoulder, it raises the level of the edge and eventually hinders run-off from flowing into side ditches. Edge drop-offs and shoulder scour are often caused when water is trapped at the pavement edge by the build-up of debris and vegetation growth.
• Maintaining culverts and roadside ditches is important to ensure water does not pond along the ditch or in the culverts, which are conditions that are prime for mosquito breeding. In addition, in ditches and culverts where obstructions exist due to excessive siltation or debris, the conveyance capacity of the ditch is hindered, which can lead to upstream flooding of adjacent properties and potential overtopping of the roadway.