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Home My WebLink About20181666 Ver 1_RE_ Sediment lost at Watauga #278_20200831 Wanucha, Dave From:Hining, Kevin J Sent:Monday, August 31, 2020 1:50 PM To:Wanucha, Dave Subject:RE: Sediment lost at Watauga #278 Hey Dave, All good points - luckily, this contractor has been pretty good about changing them out, but I think they were trying to pump too much water at one time. We have since made them lower the pump pressure, and that along with frequent bag changing seems to be working. Hopefully we will get some dry weather, which will help them keep the work area dewatered. I spoke to them today and they weathered the rain last night very well, and sounds like everything is going smoothly. They have the work area more or less dewatered and are now just pumping leakage from their dikes, which is pretty clean looking, which should help. Thanks again! Kevin Kevin Hining Division 11 Environmental Officer North Carolina Department of Transportation 828-386-7202 cell kjhining@ncdot.gov 801 Statesville Rd. PO Box 250 North Wilkesboro, NC 28659 Email correspondence to and from this address is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties. _____________________________________________________________ From: Wanucha, Dave <dave.wanucha@ncdenr.gov> Sent: Monday, August 31, 2020 11:15 AM To: Hining, Kevin J <kjhining@ncdot.gov> Subject: RE: Sediment lost at Watauga #278, B-5177 1 Hi Kevin, Thanks for the update. We have not received any complaints regarding turbidity in the Middle Fork that I know of. In any case, it sounds like you all are on top of things and staying proactive. I have heard of problems with silt bags. They do need attention and wear out. Are they ever replaced mid- project after so many hours of use? I am wondering what the manufacturer recommends in terms of hours of use, wear and tear and when to replace. Any data on that? It may be a good idea to track hours of use and then proactively replace them before there is a blow-out. That is all I could recommend moving forward. I’ll file your email in the project archive for future reference. Dave W. Division of Water Resources 401 & Buffer Transportation Permitting NC Department of Envirionmental Quality 336-776-9703 office 336-403-5655 mobile Dave.Wanucha@ncdenr.gov NC DEQ Winston Salem Regional Office 450 West Hanes Mill Road, Suite 300 Winston Salem, NC 27106 Based on the current guidance to minimize the spread of COVID-19, the Department of Environmental Quality has adjusted operations to protect the health and safety of the staff and public. Many employees are working remotely or are on staggered shifts. To accommodate these staffing changes, all DEQ office locations are limiting public access to appointments only. Please check with the appropriate staff before visiting our offices, as we may be able to handle your requests by phone or email. We appreciate your patience as we continue to serve the public during this challenging time. From: Hining, Kevin J <kjhining@ncdot.gov> Sent: Friday, August 28, 2020 4:37 PM To: Wanucha, Dave <dave.wanucha@ncdenr.gov> Subject: RE: Sediment lost at Watauga #278, B-5177 Hey Dave, We had an issue today at Watauga #278. Our silt bag exploded, and even though the silt bag was surrounded by silt fence and 57 stone, a good bit of sediment laden water made it into the creek. While the creek immediately cleared up at the construction site, the sludge of material moved downstream and muddied up the water for approximately 1 mile down to a dam removal project that is ongoing on the Middle Fork New River. Once it hit the dam removal project, it mingled with the turbid water that is leaving the dam site, and I was unable to track it any further. Speaking of the dam removal project, I’ve been trying to get photos every couple of days (when I can) of the river below our projects, but upstream of the dam removal project. I’m also taking photos from below the dam removal project. This is an effort to document sediment from us vs the dam removal project. We recently had a complaint about our projects (which are highly visible on the side of HWY 321) mudding up the Middle Fork New downstream in Boone. However, there is a dam removal and restoration effort that is not visible form HWY 321 between our projects and Boone, so as you can imagine, folks are assuming the turbidity issue is from us. I’m definitely not trying to call 2 attention to the dam removal project, but I’m collecting photos to hopefully help us out in case the complaints reach NCDWR or other entity. While my photos so far show the river is clear below our projects until reaching the dam removal project, that was not the case today. For at least a couple of hours, NCDOT was responsible for some of the sediment in the stream. There was no sediment to recover, but I’d say we lost 2-3, 5 gallon buckets full of fine sediment when the bag exploded. We immediately fixed the issue and noted it in the NPDES reports. We assume the bag exploded because of high pump pressure, so we have asked the contractor and the onsite inspector to monitor the bag and make sure we aren’t pumping to much at any one time. Let me know if you need any additional information. Also, more than happy to set up a site visit whenever you need to head this way. Thanks and Happy Friday, Kevin Kevin Hining Division 11 Environmental Officer North Carolina Department of Transportation 828-386-7202 cell kjhining@ncdot.gov 801 Statesville Rd. PO Box 250 North Wilkesboro, NC 28659 Email correspondence to and from this address is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties. _____________________________________________________________ From: Wanucha, Dave <dave.wanucha@ncdenr.gov> Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2020 5:27 PM To: Hining, Kevin J <kjhining@ncdot.gov> Subject: RE: Sediment lost at Watauga #278, B-5177 Hey Kevin, Great pictures and thanks for the project updates. Looks like the catchment for Aho Branch is mostly veg, not a lot of imperviousness, with some single family homes. Must have been an intense cloud burst over the BRP. Make sure field staff make repairs to erosion control measures where needed and make notations to indicate any repairs on NPDES records. I’ll archive this info to the project file for future reference. 3 I’ll be in touch later to schedule another round of project visits in Div 11 for Sept. Dave Division of Water Resources 401 & Buffer Transportation Permitting NC Department of Envirionmental Quality 336-776-9703 office 336-403-5655 mobile Dave.Wanucha@ncdenr.gov NC DEQ Winston Salem Regional Office 450 West Hanes Mill Road, Suite 300 Winston Salem, NC 27106 Based on the current guidance to minimize the spread of COVID-19, the Department of Environmental Quality has adjusted operations to protect the health and safety of the staff and public. Many employees are working remotely or are on staggered shifts. To accommodate these staffing changes, all DEQ office locations are limiting public access to appointments only. Please check with the appropriate staff before visiting our offices, as we may be able to handle your requests by phone or email. We appreciate your patience as we continue to serve the public during this challenging time. From: Hining, Kevin J <kjhining@ncdot.gov> Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2020 10:34 AM To: Wanucha, Dave <dave.wanucha@ncdenr.gov> Subject: Sediment lost at Watauga #278, B-5177 Hey Dave, We’ve had several high water events upstream of our culvert project at Tweetsie, on the Middle Fork New River in Watauga County. Luckily, most of the rain events have just resulted in the flooding of our work area (see photos taken from yesterday evening as an example). When this has happened, we let the work area settle and clear up, and then do our best to pump the water out, through silt bags, and try and dry things out prior to getting back to work. Luckily, the water that enters the work area clears up pretty fast, as long as the contractor stays out of it. However, just after the first photo attached above was taken, we were hit by a wall of water coming down from Blowing Rock - see photo showing wall of water as it passes our bridge project on Aho Rd. (Watauga 136). It didn‘t even rain at the Tweetsie project, but once the water arrived it overtopped our dikes, flooding the work are and surrounding parking lot (photo attached). I’m not sure you could see a measurable difference in the turbidity of the river upstream and downstream of our project as it was already pretty colored. Furthermore, as you may know, there is a dam removal and stream restoration project about 1 mile below our Tweetsie project that is also contributing some sediment into the stream with these high rain events. I honestly don’t know how you can do that type of work without having some sediment impacts, so I’m not trying to point that project out as an issue – the river will benefit from the dam removal and stream restoration for sure. I only mention this because we had a complaint about sediment in the stream in Boone yesterday afternoon, but in this case, I was able to track the sediment to the dam removal project, while our projects and the stream reach upstream of the dam remained clear, at least until the flood last night. I just wish it would quit raining for a little bit, so they can finish their project and we can finish ours…. 4 I wanted to provide the photos and report that I’m sure we lost some sediment, but as of this morning, the creek is clear again and there is no visible sediment in the stream to recover. I hope we can dry up a little, but sounds like a chance of more rain later in the week. Thanks and let me know if you have any questions, Kevin Kevin Hining Division 11 Environmental Officer North Carolina Department of Transportation 828-386-7202 cell kjhining@ncdot.gov 801 Statesville Rd. PO Box 250 North Wilkesboro, NC 28659 Email correspondence to and from this address is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties. _____________________________________________________________ Email correspondence to and from this sender is subject to the N.C. Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties. 5