Sierra Nevada Stormwater Runoff Gets JDS Treatment
Carson City, Nevada
US Highway 50 in Northern Nevada runs from the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Reno to the Great Basin National Park near Baker. Called “The Loneliest Road in America,” the Nevada portion of the stretch is anything but lonely. It zigzags through a half dozen towns and serves locals and out of towners with equal access to stunning landscape. When stormwater runoff from Mount Rose near Carson City needed treated to protect the environment, the job called for a robust solution to keep Highway 50 up to speed.
According to the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT): “Most of the drainage systems were originally constructed when the highway was built more than 50 years ago. The drainage systems carry stormwater into the Clear Creek Watershed on the south side of US Highway 50. The approximately $8 million project by contractor Granite Construction Company is one part of the Clear Creek Erosion Control Program, a cooperative initiative to reduce erosion and preserve water quality in the upper Clear Creek Watershed.”
Jensen Precast in Sparks, Nevada, specializes in stormwater and wastewater products for jobs just like this one. Granite Construction installed a Jensen Deflective Separator (JDS) to capture and treat the stormwater runoff along US Highway 50 between Carson City and Lake Tahoe. The JDS unit is a hydrodynamic, nonblocking, screening, swirl concentrating stormwater treatment system with no moving parts to maintain. Jensen Precast worked with Granite Construction to design and install the overall system.
“We put in a 96″ stormwater structure, manholes, drainage inlets, and about 100′ of 30″ pipe, all supplied by Jensen Precast,” says Jeff Puliti, Project Supervisor for Granite Construction. “The structure itself is about 17′ deep, and the manholes are about 10′ deep. That’s a lot of structure going underground. It’s an NDOT project designed to filter stormwater along US Highway 50 between Carson City and Spooner Summit near Lake Tahoe.”
NDOT uses best management practices to minimize potential water quality impacts that could result from the construction and maintenance of state highways. NDOT projects in Carson City and Lake Tahoe have received awards from the American Public Works Association for their commitment to environmental improvement.
If your agency or business wants to know about about the Jensen Deflective Separator system, contact us for a Lunch & Learn event.
