Stormwater Detention

    • Application: Stormwater Detention
    • Location: Shell Gas Station, British Columbia, Canada
    • Details: Stormwater Detention Under Parking Lot
    • Completion: April 2010

Storm water detention and management is becoming a routine component in land development projects, particularly along riparian corridors where rain runoff surge and silt are degrading water quality and the ecology.

The Shell Gas Station site surface water speed and volume could be reduced by detaining the rain surge water in an Atlantis Storm Water system and then releasing it more slowly over a period of hours or days to meet acceptable natural and historic run off rates. The Atlantis Storm Water system allows for high volume storage of runoff in a small footprint area. This BMP was specified by Hub Engineering for the Shell Gas Station project due to insufficient space on the site to infiltrate the run off or build a surface facility such as a retention basin. The Atlantis system has 95% free void compared to 20% for an aggregate trench, thus allowing for greater water storage. Installing the Atlantis Storm Water Detention Tank enabled the land of the Shell Gas Station to be used for parking, landscaping, and green space. The storm water detention system had to contain a water storage volume of at least 383m3.

One challenge presented by the Shell Gas Station project was the work site location. The project site was incredibly active, next to a busy highway where there was constant, ongoing construction of the Shell Gas Station. The Atlantis Rain Tank modules were therefore assembled at King Hoe Excavating Ltd.’s yard which was half a mile from the job site and trucked into the work site pre-assembled. Each module took about nine minutes to assemble.

The Atlantis distributor was able to not only supply the 1,102 triple Atlantis tank modules, Nonwoven Geotextile, PVC Geomembrane, and Biaxial Geogrid for the Storm Water Detention Tank, but also provide technical product training and two days of installation supervision services on site during the installation by King Hoe Excavating Ltd. The Nonwoven Geotextile was wrapped around the entire tank to keep the fill material out of the tank. The PVC Geomembrane was placed beneath and up the sides of the tank to detain all water entering the system until it is released. The Biaxial Geogrid was placed above the tank for ground reinforcement as the tank was installed beneath a parking lot.

King Hoe Excavating Ltd. was an excellent, professional contractor and the installation went according to plan. Both Corix Water Products and King Hoe Excavating Ltd. were satisfied with the Atlantis Storm Water Detention system and the installation direction provided by the Atlantis Distributor.

The Atlantis distributor was able to supply materials and technical support to overcome the challenge of managing storm waters on the Shell Gas Station site by offering the Atlantis system. Within a smaller footprint the Atlantis Storm Water Detention Tank achieves better storage capacity that other typical methods while allowing for the space above the tank to be used for parking and landscaping.

The Atlantis Storm Water Detention Tank system installed at the Shell Gas Station in Abbotsford, BC is working per the original water storage requirements set out by Hub Engineering Inc.