HomeMy WebLinkAboutDrainage Letter10497 Town and Country Way, Suite 600 • Houston, Texas 77024 • 713-600-6800 • fax 713-600-6801 www.freese.com
TO: Alan Gibbs, P.E.
CC: Project File
FROM: Hector Olmos, P.E., CFM; Leslie Munoz, EIT, CFM
SUBJECT: A&M Church of Christ Drainage Letter Review
DATE: 06/16/2017
PROJECT: CCL14552 -Update of Drainage Manual
Introduction
Freese and Nichols, Inc (FNI) has been asked to review the drainage submittal for the A&M Church of Christ
proposed improvements based on the submission dated May 3, 2016 by McClure & Browne,
Engineering/Surveying Co. The submitted report included a short description of the methodology and findings,
elevation-storage-discharge curves, summary of results, rational method table, storage routing tables, and related
exhibits. Additionally, the City provided the drainage report for the original submittal from 2002. The original
report did not include any calculation tables, but it included project methodology and related exhibits.
Project Description
According to project report, the A&M Church of Christ was built in 2005 and was designed to include a detention
pond of 2.97 acres to mitigate the increase in impervious area. The project site drains partly onto the northeast
and partly to the southwest into unnamed tributaries to Wolf Penn Creek. The site was constructed and designed
to carry flow from the site through inlets in the parking lot and through a storm sewer system onto the detention
pond. The detention pond was designed with an 18" outlet pipe at elevation 262.82' with a steel plate and an
overflow weir at elevation 267.5'. Since the original construction of the church in 2005, the pond was expanded to
4.2 acres for reasons unknown and the steel plate was removed. In 2016, the church wanted to expand their
facilities and the submitted report was meant to evaluate the effect of the proposed additions to the detention
system . The report does not suggest any increase in the pond size .
Report Findings
The report states "Based on the topographic survey of the site, and evaluation of the existing outlet structures, I
conclude that the existing detention pond at A&M Church of Christ should adequately provide stormwater
detention for the existing and proposed development."
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FNI Findings
FNI received the following items:
1. Drainage Letter for the addition to A&M Church of Christ, dated May 3, 2016 by McClure & Browne
a. Narrative of analysis objectives and summary of results
b. Elevation-storage curve for the pond based on as-built survey
c. Rational method calculations table
d. Exhibit B-1: Existing Conditions Drainage Area Map
e. Exhibit B-2: Proposed Condition Drainage Area Map
f. As-Built topographic survey of existing detention pond
g. Proposed detention pond routing tables
h. Stage-discharge tables
i. Elevation-storage graphs
j. Storage-discharge graphs
2. Drainage Report for A&M Church of Christ, dated December 2002 by McClure Engineering, Inc.
a. Narrative of analysis objective, methodology, and summary of results
b. Exhibit A: Flood Insurance Rate Map Excerpt
c. Exhibit B-1: Existing Conditions Drainage Area Map
d. Exhibit B-2: Proposed Condition Drainage Area Map
3. Photos
a. April gth_ rock dam
b. June 9th -detention pond outfall with plate
4. Doodle on as-built detention pond survey
After reviewing the submitted reports and supporting documentation as well as the available Google Earth aerial
imagery for the site from 1995 to 2017, FNI offers the following:
General:
1. Submitted report {2016) includes exhibits B-1 and B-2 which are identical to exhibits B-1 and B-2 from the
original submittal in 2002. It was not clear what the proposed improvements were. Based on aerial
imagery, FNI found that a building was added between 2014 and 2016. This building footprint seems to
relatively match an outline within the submitted exhibits. Additionally, it was found that the church
building was constructed in 2004 and at that point closely resembled the exhibits from the original
submittal in 2002. However, between March 2004 and October 2005, the parking lot adjacent to the pond
was doubled in size. The addition to the parking lot in 2005 removed approximately an acre of land from
the pond area and added impervious cover of about 0.5 acres to two areas: Bypass 1 and an unnamed area
to the south of the pond . This is not reflected either in the original submittal nor in the 2016 report. Figure
1 shows the changes within the site from 2004 to 2017.
2. The report mentions that an as-built topographic survey was performed in order to develop a new
elevation-storage curve for the pond as it existed on the site. The topographic survey and narrative
indicate that the high bank of the pond is at elevation 267'. This would imply that the pond includes some
of the parking lot addition.
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3. Report uses an existing condition which represents the undeveloped state of the tract before the building
was constructed. While this was appropriate for the original submittal of 2002, the existing conditions for
the purposes of evaluating impacts and detention needs for the proposed additions/ improvements should
be the conditions representing the church layout before the planned expansion.
Hydrology
4. Submitted report mentions that the proposed improvements would increase the impervious cover of
subbasins 5 and 6. Our review revealed that it would also affect subbasin 7. It is unknown if this was
omitted from the report only or if the flow for subbasin 7 was not updated accordingly. It is also unknown
if the addition of the building was correctly reflected in the submitted rational method calculations as
there were no originals {2002) to compare against.
5. Subbasin Bypass 1 is modeled as "undeveloped" when there is an existing parking lot (expansion from
2005). The area of the expanded parking lot (about 0.5 acres of more impervious cover) seems to have
been re-routed to drain onto the detention pond, but the additional flow was not accounted for in the
rational method calculations. This underestimates the flow incoming to the detention pond . This means
that the submitted analysis, may underestimate the water surface elevations and discharges out of the
pond.
6. The area adjacent to, and east of, the pond appears to drain in the southeast direction and is not named or
used in the analysis. The drainage boundary between this area and Bypassl is different between the
"existing" and "proposed" conditions. Since there was no development nearby the drainage divide, the
boundary should have remained the same. The submitted as-built topo supports the delineation in
"existing" conditions. This means that the proposed condition underestimates the flow produced by
subbasin Bypass 1 and the resulting flow at Study Point A.
7. Additionally, the parking lot was expanded into this unnamed area adjacent to and east of the pond. This
area was graded to drain into the detention pond. This addition of parking (0.4 ac more of impervious
cover) increases the area, impervious cover and flow produced by subbasin 13A. No mention of this was
made in the report and the additional flow was not accounted for in the rational method calculations. This
underestimates the flow incoming to the detention pond, and the submitted analysis may underestimate
the water surface elevations and discharges out of the pond.
8. The rational method table shows that the subbasin times of concentration do not account for travel time
across the storm sewer system . This means that the flow computed must represent the flow at the outlet
of the sub basin (inlet or swale). It is unclear how the flow was routed through the storm sewer system to
lag the flow from these subbasins to the detention pond. The submitted pond routing only shows a
combined flow coming from subbasins 7, 13 and 14. It is unknown whether this combined flow represents
the flow that occurs after routing the subbasin flow through the pipe system. Subbasin hydrographs or
models were not submitted to verify this.
9. The rational method table shows that the intensities calculated for the 100-year event do not match the
intensities expected using the IDF equation from the Unified Stormwater Design Guidelines. However, the
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intensities used are larger than the required and sothey represent more conservative 100-year peak flows
for the subbasins.
Hydraulics
10. Submitted report states that the steel plate which was originally restricting the inflow into the 18" pipe
was removed at some time in the past and the report suggested for the plate to be reinstalled. Based on
our analysis, it appears that the outflow curve for the outlet structures (18" pipe) is not correct. Using the
same assumption as the report that the plate would cover half of the pipe opening, our results show that
the flow from the pipe at elevation 266' is approximately 11.8 cfs . in contrast to the 7.09 cfs, which would
increase discharges out of the pond.
11. It is unclear if the submitted report considered tailwater conditions in the development of the discharge
curve or not. However, even with tailwater below the flowline of the pipe, our analysis shows that the
discharges from the pipe and steel plate do not match those included in the discharge curve in the report.
12. Submitted report uses the outflow curve from the outlet structures in routing the flows from the
development through the detention pond. Based on our analysis, it seems that there may be errors with
the routing calculations. Using the rating curve and inflows as provided in the report, our analysis shows
that the pond water surface elevation for the 100-year with the steel plate should be 265.7' instead of
266.29'. A summary of pond elevations and outlet flows can be found in the Table 1.
13. Because of the discrepancies in the outflow curve and storage routing, the total proposed flows after the
addition of the flows from Bypass 1 and subbasin 16, as calculated in our analysis, are larger than stated in
the report (19 cfs vs. 23 .1 cfs for the 100-year and 13 cfs vs. 15.4 cfs for the 5-year). A summary of pond
elevations and outlet flows can be found in Table 1.
14. Based on our analysis, the pond can contain the flows as represented with the submitted report. However,
since the analysis neglects part of the area draining to Bypass 1 and the parking additions (totaling about
an acre and a half of additional impervious cover, of which about an acre is unaccounted for), it is
uncertain if the detention pond would adequately mitigate impacts from the church expansion.
15. Based on received photos, it appears that the installed plate does not cover half the opening as was
assumed during the analysis by Brown & McClure. Pictures show that about a third of the opening is
covered by the plate. This would increase the outflow through the outlet pipe .
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Using XPSTORM 2016.1
Pond Pond flow at
Scenario Stage Outflow Sutdy Point
ft cfs A cfs
5-year with plate 265.61
100-year with plate 266.36
100-year with RC 265. 7
9.5
12
6.7
From submitted report (2016)
Pond Pond flow at
15.2
23.3
13.6
Scenario Stage
(ft)
Outflow Sutdy Point
(cfs) A (ds)
5-year with RC 265.48 6.4 13
7.4 100-year with RC 266.29 7.4 19
Where RC stands for rating curve.
The rating curve was taken from Exhibit D-3 (with plate) from submitted report.
Table 1-Summary of Pertinent Water Elevations and Flows
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FREESE •1 ~NICHOLS Exhibit 1
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FREESE I ~NICHOLS Exhibit 1
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FREESE I ~NICHOLS Exhibit 1
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FREESE I ~NICHOLS Exhibit 1
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