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Environmentally Sensitive Dirt, Gravel, and Low-volume Road Maintenance Program for Community Associations

The Lake Wallenpaupack Watershed Management District, with funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Growing Greener program, is pleased to offer community associations a two-part program designed to help address road maintenance issues and correct sediment and nutrient pollution originating from dirt, gravel, and low-volume roads within the Lake Wallenpaupack Watershed. LWWMD has partnered with Pike County Conservation District, Wayne Conservation District, and the Penn State Center for Dirt, Gravel, and Low-Volume Road Studies to offer this program and are grateful for their assistance. 

Part 1: Training Session 

Community association representatives attended a training session in early June on environmentally sensitive maintenance practices presented by the Penn State Center for Dirt, Gravel, and Low-volume Road Studies. This training program provided association personnel with best practices to maintain their privately-owned roads and reduce nutrient pollution to our lakes and streams. 

Part 2: Competitive Grant Program Application Process

Associations must be located within the Lake Wallenpaupack Watershed. Any association attending Part One (the training session) is eligible to apply for grant funding to remediate pollution sources. Associations will be required to provide at least 25% of the total project cost as a match. Additional requirements are contained in the Program Application linked below. 

Program Application– This is a downloadable PDF. Pgs 7-10 are “fillable”, but the remainder of the form should be completed/signed/initialed by hand. We expect applicants to have questions. Please reach out to LWWMD for clarification, as necessary. **This program is only open to associations that had a representative attend the training session**

Special thanks to the Penn State Center for Dirt, Gravel, and Low-Volume Road Studies for partnering with LWWMD and sharing their expertise. Additional technical information can be found on the Center’s website, but the resources most relevant to the Lake Wallenpaupack Watershed are listed below.

Environmentally Sensitive Maintenance (ESM) Field Guide: A downloadable pdf of the spiral-bound booklet given to our workshop attendees.

Technical Bulletins

Pipes
–Headwalls and Endwalls: General information on the benefits of headwalls and endwalls at pipes.
–Stacked Stone Headwalls: Details on how to construct headwalls and endwalls out of native stone.
–Crosspipe Installation: Important considerations and a walkthrough of a typical crosspipe installation.
–Shallow Crosspipe Installation: Installing pipes based on outlet elevation, not road elevation, to eliminate outlet trenches.
–Crosspipe Standard Detail Sheet

Sub-surface Drainage
–French Mattress: French mattresses allow water to pass under a road through coarse stone.
–Underdrains: General information on underdrain and where and why to use it.
–Constructed Stone Underdrains: Walkthrough of creating your own underdrain with of perforated pipe, clean stone, and fabric.
–French Mattress Standard Detail Sheet

Surface Drainage
–Surface Drainage Practices: Road maintenance features designed to shed water from the travelway, including crown and cross-slope, grade breaks, and broad-based dips.
–Crown and Cross-Slope: Different types of crown and proper cross-slope for unpaved roads.
–Grade Breaks: Grade breaks are surface drainage features that stop concentrated flow and road erosion.
–Broad-Based Dips: Surface dips that transport water across the surface of a low volume road.
–Surface Maintenance: General information on maintaining unpaved road surfaces.
–Raising the Road Profile: Raising the elevation of the road to achieve better drainage.
–Raising the Road Profile Standard Detail Sheet
–Road Crown Standard Detail Sheet

Road Surface Maintenance
–Carbide-Tipped Blade: Benefits of a carbide-tipped blade for surface maintenance operations.

Road Banks
–Bank Benches: Steps created in a road bank to slow and control the flow of water over the bank.
–“Through-the-Bank” Pipes: A pipe placed through the downhill road bank to get water out of the road profile.
–“Through-the-Bank” Pipe Standard Detail Sheet
–Crosspipe and “Through-the-Bank” Pipe Standard Detail Sheet

Driving Surface Aggregate (DSA)
–DSA: A summary of the Center-developed DSA. Includes material specification, sampling and testing, preparation for placement, placement, compaction, maintenance, and other considerations.
–Road Aggregates 101: A summary of size, gradation, and typical use for some of the more common aggregates for road maintenance in Pennsylvania. Includes course aggregates and rip-rap.

DGLVR Materials Calculator– This link will take you to the Materials Calculator page on the DGLVR Center’s website

Copies of PowerPoint Files from Workshop

01_INTRODUCTION_2023
02_OFF_ROW_2023
03_GEOSYNTHETICS_2023
04_ROAD_BASE_2023
05_ENTRENCHED_ROADS_2023
06_LOW_VOLUME_ROADS_2023
07_ROAD_BANKS_2023
08_SURFACE_MAINT_and_DRAINAGE_2023
09_DITCHES_2023
10_DITCH_OUTLETS_2023
11_DSA_2023

Other Reference Materials
–Dust Suppressants
–Ernst Conservation Seed: Pennsylvania-based supplier of specialized conservation seed mixes