Whether you're trying to increase the lifespan of your existing culvert system or have safety concerns for the integrity of culverts around ford creeks and small bridges, culverts are a serious part of your storm water management system. If your waterworks or company doesn't keep up with maintenance, repair and replacement, you could be exposing yourself to everything from expensive replacements to legal action depending on what happens when your culvert system fails. One great options to consider is culvert lining. Here are the dangers of ignoring culvert maintenance and how culvert lining can help solve those problems.
Case Study: Southwest Missouri
Budgets are tight in the many rural counties that make up southwest Missouri. As many rural areas of the country, farm roads and city streets often cross wet-weather creeks and small rivers using culvert and ford bridges that have been in place for decades, with small budgets requiring patchwork repairs as possible. With excessive rainfall this past spring, there were two serious bridge failures we'll discuss to point out the problems that are becoming apparent all over the country.
The first was in a small town of 4,000 between Springfield and Joplin, a popular stopping point for travelers to grab a bite to eat, fill up with gas and enjoy a little small-town life. A side street crossed a wet-weather creek using a pair of large culverts, approximately 4' in diameter. The culverts had been in place with the road over them for several decades. During the spring rains, the combination of corrosion and soil weight took their toll, and one of the culverts collapsed, taking out the bridge and leaving residents inconvenienced while replacement and repairs were underway.
The second bridge failure was on a farm road ford bridge, a popular route into a neighboring town by farmers in the countryside. Flash flooding tore up the paving on the top of the bridge and the culvert on one end that passed water through failed entirely and caused significant undercutting and erosion of the stream bed during the flooding. The bridge was out for nearly two months before it was finally repaired properly.
Don't Forget About it: Culvert Lining
When your organization is too busy to keep up with proper maintenance, repair and replacement, you can suddenly find yourself in a bad situation. Much like the case studies in southwest Missouri, you can suddenly find a number of culverts failing, leaving you in a lurch. If you could provide yourself with insurance against total failure with a small investment that would protect against culvert replacements, bridge failures and potential legal action, would you take it? Absolutely!
Culvert lining using plastic liners is an easy, no-dig solution to the problem. Instead of having to dig up and replace old metal culverts, requiring a significant investment of time, materials and labor, not to mention inconveniencing your customers, you can simply slide the plastic culvert linings into place to line and reinforce your aging culverts. They also often provide superior water flow compared to concrete lining of existing culverts, as they are not as thick as concrete liners.
Culvert failures are a messy, expensive and serious problem, and culvert replacement is often not a reasonable option in terms of budget, time or labor, but culvert lining is a great way to get around the problem. If you're looking for culvert lining solutions, Team EJP has the solution for your problems. Our trained consultants will help you find the perfect product for your aging culvert system. Contact us today to explore your options and protect your system.
