10. Maintenance

Diligent maintenance is an absolute necessity to assure effective erosion control throughout the life of a road. Following construction, inevitable deficiencies in design and construction practices require modification or repair. Throughout the life of the road, traffic use and natural deterioration continue to make diligent maintenance a necessity.

Recommend maintenance practices are:

1. A maintenance record should be developed for each road consisting of the actual construction plans for the road and a tally of the kind and cost of maintenance operations required over time. The record will assist in training new personnel and provide a solid background of data to prevent extension of mistakes to roads in other areas.
2. Culverts, cross drains, and dips should be cleaned regularly to assure proper functioning, especially before winter or expected rainy seasons. Debris should be removed from live drainages for a distance of 30 meters upstream from the inlet. Cross drains and dips are often damaged during high use periods or sometimes even removed for more efficient traffic flow; they should be replaced before rainy seasons or snowfall.
3. Ditches should be cleared of debris and sediment accumulations with care being taken to avoid disturbing stabilized ditch bottoms. Avoid undercutting the roadcut when removing slide debris.
4. Grade the road surface as often as necessary to retain the original surface drainage (either insloped or outsloped). Take care to avoid side-casting graded material over the fill slope. Carefully monitor surface drainage during wet periods and close the road if necessary to avoid undue damage. Restore surfacing on the road tread and in the road ditch if necessary following damage caused by operation in wet periods.
5. Haul all excess material removed by maintenance operations to safe disposal areas. Apply stabilization measures on disposal sites if necessary to assure that erosion and sedimentation do not occur.
6. During large storms or excessive snowmelt it is beneficial to patrol roads to assure that road drainage facilities are functioning.

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Last Modified: 07/05/2007