Stormwater Drainage & Passive Irrigation

An Atlantis Stormwater Management System has been installed at Heidelburg Retirement Village Site in St. Catherines, Ontario, CANADA. The system was specified by Kerry T Howe Engineering Ltd. and installed in August 2004. Some of the collected storm water will ex-filtrate into the ground through the surrounding slightly permeable native soil. Addidtional storm water in the trench will irrigate the adjacent trees and bushes through sub-surface irrigation. The remaining water will drain into the existing municipal storm sewers through controlled outlets. By managing most of the storm water locally and delaying the release of the rest, this trench will prevent local flooding during heavy storms. The trench is designed to provide adequate detention for a hundred-year storm.

An underground storm water collection, storage, infiltration and drainage system, consisting of 8,616 Atlantis tank modules arranged to form a 524m long trench that surrounds the entire residential community. The width of the trench varies between 1.62m and 2.4m, while it’s height varies between 0.9m and 1.8m. The depth of cover above the trench is 2m. Most of the trench runs underneath parking lots, driveways and walkways. Other parts of the trench will run under grass-covered surfaces. The trench will receive surface run-off through a network of catch basins connected to the trench by underground pipes. The grass-covered parts of the trench will also catch surface run-off that infiltrates through the layer of permeable soil and grass.

The unassembled Atlantis tank modules were shipped to site inside four 40 ft-long shipping containers. Using a crew of five people, including the excavator’s operator, the total time required to unload the containers, excavate the trench, assemble the modules, arrange them in place inside the trench, connect the inlet/outlet connections, then back-fill and compact the trench was ten 8-hour days.