Erosion Control

Erosion Control measures have come a long way... especially in Colorado. In fact, most all jurisdictions have devoted entire sections of their land development code to address erosion and sedimentation control. Erosion control can vary from simple measures such as silt fencing (used as a temporary barrier to control erosion and sediment on down hill or perimeter side of construction activities) and vehicle tracking control (essentially road base placed at the entrance to a job site to help remove and limit material that would otherwise be tracked off-site by equipment and vehicles) to more extensive (and expensive) measures. Through experience we've learned what BMP's (Best Management Practices) particular jurisdictions like to see at a minimum and through our construction period inspections we've learned what BMP's seem to stand the test of time during construction.

It is our job as professional engineers to understand how different BMP's work and what BMP's function best in different site conditions (ie.. mountain projects vs. city projects). We also always try to keep our client's bottom line in mind when designing erosion control plans. With all of the new BMP's out there today it is easy to spend thousands of extra dollars on erosion control measures without understanding the cost/benefit of each. In other words, sometimes the proper implementation and upkeep of a few critical BMP's can be much more valuable then specifying 15 different BMP's that are installed and applied incorrectly.

The Urban Drainage and Flood Control District (UDFCD) has an excellent section on erosion control here under "Construction BMP's":

UDFCD Volume III - Construction BMP's


Contact us at info@altitudeeng.com to help answer any questions regarding erosion control BMP's

Expert Witness Services !!!

Did you know that Altitude Engineering & Surveying, Inc. offers Expert Witness Services?

Unfortunately, some construction projects end up in what is known as Construction Defect Litigation. In any construction defect litigation case where a Design Professional is involved, an Expert Witness in that same design field is needed by attorneys and the courts to assess the performance of the design professional involved.

The key to a successful Expert Witness is the ability of the expert to communicate what can be, at times, difficult technical content in a lay-person's terms that can be easily understood by attorneys, courts, and juries.

If you are an attorney, insurer, or design professional dealing with a construction defect litigation situation, please contact us at Altitude Engineering & Surveying for more information regarding our Expert Witness services. We have Expert Witness Certification through the American Council of Engineering Companies of Colorado (ACEC).

Land Surveying with GPS

Although surveying with GPS can sometimes be frustrating with the lack of signal coverage, it is hands down the quickest and most efficient way to survey when it is working. When we use GPS, we tie into an established (and growing) cell network that has almost full GPS coverage on the eastern slope of Colorado. This means that we literally show up with a Leica GPS rover unit, start it up, and we are off and running (more or less). With the way we utilize the GPS rover we can easily shoot various off-site benchmarks and confirm vertical elevations in a matter of minutes. We can also obtain topography and boundary information on large sites in a short time frame.

Last week, we utilized GPS to do boundary and topography mapping in Evergreen, a Land Survey Plat in central Denver, and topography mapping in south Denver all within about a 24 hour period. We also shot various off-site benchmarks, section corners, etc in addition to the on-site surveying. With a total station survey system there is simply no way we would've been able to complete that amount of work and still feel comfortable with the accuracy of the data we obtained.

This efficiency allows us to pass the savings onto our clients without compromising the quality of our work.