How Dirt Affects SWPPP Compliance

Dust Controls, Preserving Topsoil, and Minimizing Soil Compaction

Dust control consists of things such as:

• the use of water trucks
• limiting access to the site
• slowing the speed of vehicles
• minimizing work in high winds
• slowing the dumping of materials
• preventing tracking
• preserving vegetation
• covering stockpiles
• the use of wind fences

Where dust is a concern, you should also try to minimize the disturbance of steep slopes.  

Another one of the categories of BMP controls is to preserve topsoil. When developing a site, consideration needs to be given to how best to preserve the topsoil. Topsoil holds most of the nutrients needed to grow vegetation. This is also essential to keeping pollutants on the site and not in the storm drains.  

Whenever possible, areas where pervious surfaces will exist at the end of the project should be protected from compaction. A couple of ways of doing this are to restrict vehicle and equipment access to the area and the use of soil conditioning techniques.