The Top 5 Ways to Improve Your Current Stormwater Inspections

If you are like many stormwater inspectors, time flies so fast when you are in the field inspecting. Adding to the ongoing complexities and changes of regulatory requirements are changing weather, construction demands, communication, and BMPs. Spending a little time up front to make sure your process is the best it can be will save you time and money while helping to increase site compliance and productivity.

Whether you are new or a seasoned inspector, improving stormwater inspections is a must. Here are 5 ways to help you out with that:

1.  Ditch the Paper – Go Digital!

The #1 way to improve your current stormwater inspection efforts is to ditch the paper and Go Digital. Stormwater regulations and inspections have a lot of moving parts and items to keep up with. Unfortunately, stormwater inspectors stay in a rut when they don’t evolve by not using today’s technology to keep up with some of the specifics like corrective action due dates, communicating needs, document signatures, map updates, and more. Do yourself the biggest favor this year and make the jump to digital stormwater inspections. You will be glad you did 🙂

2.  Leverage Your Phone or Tablet 

The phone in your pocket is a more powerful computer than what NASA used to get to the moon and back in the 1960s. Never before has utilizing the tools you already have become so important due to the ability to do and communicate more in our fast-paced world, not to mention the challenging Covid-19 pandemic. Stop fumbling around with hardcopies, handwritten notes, spreadsheets, or double-entry of inspections (once in the field and once back at the office). Put yourself in a position to inspect from your phone to further optimize your workday.

3.  Automate Rain Event Notifications and Precipitation Data

The last thing you want to have to remember and do time and time again at the beginning or end of an inspection is to manually find the weather data and precipitation history in order to include it on your inspection report. Although it may take only a few minutes each time to do this, a full day of inspections could prove costly and time-consuming as the time adds up. Your best play is to have the weather information along with precipitation history automatically included in your inspection report. Today’s stormwater management software should include this at a minimum, and although you might have to pay for this type of software, you will likely and quickly find the money and time savings are worth it.

4.  Compliant Inspection Form

Having a compliant Inspection form from the get-go is one of the best things you can do to ensure site compliance while dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s. All too often, outdated inspection forms are used and they do not include basic required information or ask the right questions. Take the time now to research your permit regulations for inspection requirements. Examples for stormwater inspection forms could include items such as precipitation data within the last 24 hours and since the last inspection, source of precipitation data, dates of excavation or stabilization, completion of prior action items statement, or open corrective action items acknowledgment.  

5.  Training, Training, Training…

Improving stormwater inspections is ongoing and requires time and effort, it is one of those fields where you learn something new each day. Compliance and regulations are ever-evolving and changing, construction and businesses are changing, new innovations are bringing about needed change, all of this plus the never-ending changes of the weather. Stormwater inspectors committed to learning and staying up to date with the stormwater compliance industry will soon realize why ongoing training is one of your best assets.