Roading

In the last issue we ran a story about the recent visit to New Zealand by Mark Shaw, managing director of UltraTech, whose company manufacture a range of stormwater management products widely used throughout the US construction industry to manage issues of erosion and sediment control.

While in New Zealand, Mark spent time with the team at Utility Services, who have been one of the earliest adopters of UltraTech’s stormwater management products in New Zealand.

Utility Services recently won the contract to maintain Metrowater’s network of wastewater and stormwater pipes throughout Auckland.

Ian Syer, manager of drainage operations said: “We wanted to be at the forefront of water management and that meant making sure we were dealing with the disposal of grey water in a responsible manner. We do over 2,000 jobs a month for Metrowater and as you can imagine when you’re fixing broken water pipes you can be faced with hundreds or even thousands of litres of muddy water. Simply letting that go down the stormwater is not acceptable because of the downstream damage that can be caused by the large volume of water or the contaminants it carries with it.

“The industry’s attitude for a long time has been:
‘It’s only a bit of muddy water, how much damage Utility Services’ proactive approach to stormwater management can it do?’ But it’s clear from the attitude of the regional and city councils that the damage is significant and practices have to change,” Ian said.

Utility Services made a conscious effort to not just comply with the local bylaws but to take a leadership role and apply best management practise to the management of grey water run-off. “We were clear that we wanted to be the market leader in this area and as such spent several weeks before operations began speaking with suppliers about the products available to manage water flow and remove sediment.

Ultimately we decided the best course of action was to set up a trailer that could be quickly deployed, with all the necessary products to handle floods and spills,” said Ian.

“We use a range of products from UltraTech including the GutterGuard, to hold back sediment while letting clean water through into the stormwater system and PipeSocks whenever we’re pumping out muddy water. Most frequently however, our first job is to divert floods away from low lying driveways or stormwater inlets. We use the Ultra SpillBerms and DrainSeals for this as they’re quick to deploy, work effectively and are reusable,” Ian added.

UltraSpill Berms and DrainSeals are made from polyurethane that ‘weeps’ into small cracks and forms a temporary seal to most 1 Ian Syer and Mark Shaw install Ultra DrainGuard to stop sediment and oil entering the stormwater 2 Ultra SpillBerms used to divert water and chemicals away from drains 3 Resusable gutter guard holds back sediment while letting clean water pass through smooth surfaces. They’re most often used as part of spill response kits because of their resistance to a wide range of chemicals but as Utility Services have shown, they’re just as effective to stop and channel water away from stormwater inlets.

Mark Shaw said: “I’m encouraged to see companies such as Utility Services embracing the use of technologies to solve issues with dewatering and sediment control. Usually it takes some time to convince businesses that they need to proactively managing the run-off of grey water but Ian and his great example for the rest of the industry.”

Mark noted that it was the construction and roading industry in particularly that often generated large amounts of sediment through their activities.“If the construction and roading guys adopted the same responsible attitude to sediment run-off that Utility Services are demonstrating, then New Zealand will be a long way down the road to addressing problems of sedimentation of rivers, estuaries and harbours.”

For more information contact:
Darryl Burn,
Marketing Manager,
Dalton International Ltd,
Tel: 09 263 3142,
Fax: 09 262 0029,
or Email: