Soil Science

Stormwater Infiltration Analysis

To Determine Infiltration Capacity (The maximum rate at which water can infiltrate into a soil under a given set of conditions).

If you are developing land in Pennsylvania, you must be aware of PA DEP’s change in stormwater management requirements, which is rapidly becoming incorporated into many municipal stormwater ordinances.

CMT has the experienced and qualified personnel and equipment necessary to coordinate and complete the field investigation work for stormwater infiltration analysis.

What’s provided with CMT’s Infiltration Analysis?

• Accepted Standard
  Investigation is conducted in general accordance with Appendix “C” of the December 2006 PADEP Stormwater BMP Manual. Includes using test pits and soil profiling to identify limiting soil layers and other subsurface conditions of interest and preferred testing methods.
• Qualified Professional
  Investigations are conducted by our experienced professional soil scientist, Jeremy Tyson, CPSS, who is capable of diagnosing complex soil conditions and making field adjustments to the scope, if necessary.
• Adequate Level of Investigation
  CMT has 8 years of experience providing infiltration analyses throughout PA. We are familiar with the “level of investigation” preferred and/or required by many municipalities and governing agencies. We will use this experience and our professional judgment to help establish an appropriate initial project scope (even for use by the client for bidding purposes), and to determine the actual level of investigation needed based on the field conditions. If the initial scope is “overkill,” we will adjust it to save costs if possible.
• Quality Report
  CMT strives to provide the client with useful results (design infiltration rates), opinions and recommendations in our reports. All reports are written by a soil scientist. 

Why conduct an infiltration analysis?

• To satisfy municipal/DEP requirements.
• To determine feasibility of stormwater infiltration
• To evaluate soil effects on best management practice (BMP) performance.
• To obtain design infiltration rates and recommendations.
• To evaluate existing BMP’s for additional capacity.
• To evaluate inadequate performance of existing BMP’s.

Suitability Surveys

To assess a site’s general suitability for a variety of potential land uses.

Why conduct a suitability survey?

• To provide a variety of useful soil profile information during initial project stages.
• Soil profile can be analyzed by a geotechnical engineer to identify potential design/construction difficulties.
• To avoid costly “surprises” in later project stages.

*May be beneficial to conduct both investigations concurrently