Pennsylvania Stormwater and Ethics 24 PDH Discount Package 3

This online engineering PDH course describes basic design principles of embankment and excavation ponds as well as construction requirements.  Other topics include: water needs, preliminary soil investigations, watershed & stormwater runoff estimation, basin sealing, spillways and inlets, and operation & maintenance.

This 5 PDH online course is intended for hydrologists, civil engineers, agricultural engineers, construction engineers, municipal engineers, geotechnical engineers and environmental engineers.  An attendee of this course will gain knowledge about planning, design, and construction of embankment and excavated ponds.

This online engineering PDH course presents EPA's stormwater best management practice for the protection of wetlands and aquatic ecosystems and conservation of water.

Municipal operations can adversely affect the water quality system due to pollutant runoff from various activities such as park and open space maintenance, fleet and building maintenance, new construction and land disturbances, and storm water system maintenance.

EPA recognizes that storm water pollution resulting from municipal activities can be prevented or reduced by implementing an effective storm water operations and maintenance program. Therefore the EPA published the Storm Water Phase II Rule on December 8, 1999, that describes a menu of Best Management Practices (BMP). “Pollution Prevention/Good Housekeeping for Municipal Operations” is one of the Best Management Practices that requires operators of small MS4s in urbanized areas to implement a storm water management program for the protection of wetlands and aquatic ecosystems, improved quality of receiving water bodies, conservation of water resources, flood control, and protection of public health.

This 2 PDH online course is applicable to municipality owners and/ or operators, construction contractors/workers, site developers, engineers, managers, and all other personnel involved in the implementation of good housekeeping practices (materials management) for municipal operations.

This online engineering PDH course introduces the reader to the development of construction site Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPP). A SWPPP is required for coverage under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Construction Site General Permit.

Development inevitably causes some degree of disturbance and compaction of the soil, the loss of vegetation density, impacts to natural habitats and the creation of impervious surfaces.  All too often ordinances requirements result in a site layout that does not take into consideration the most valuable aspects of a site.  Water quality, habitat, and critical ecological features can be lost if sites are fit to a development, rather than fitting a development to a site.

The most critical requirement of the NPDES permit is the preparation and implementation of a SWPPP. The NPDES program has specific requirements for items that must be addressed in a SWPPP. Understanding the requirements for the creation and implementation of a SWPPP is essential to staying in compliance with the law. The SWPPP serves many functions: NPDES permit conditions require it, it provides documentation of compliance, and ultimately if properly designed and implemented it provides the direction to reduce water quality impacts.

This 5 PDH online course is applicable to practicing engineers, contractors, developers, regulators, and all other personnel involved with construction sites.

This online engineering PDH course provides design guidance for BMPs referred to as vegetative biofilters.  Three different types of these on-site BMPs are described in this course and include grass swales, vegetated filter strips and bioretention cells.

The goals and objectives of best management practice (BMP) for stormwater management are as diverse as the situations to which they are applied.

This 10 PDH online course is applicable to civil and geotechnical engineers, site developers, and contractors as well as design and construction personnel involved with the planning and design of stormwater systems.

This engineering online PDH course will establish conditions under which, when an engineering failure has occurred, it can be attributed to negligence.    

Five causes of failure are proposed: negligence, rare failure mode, overlooked failure mode, new (previously unrecognized) failure mode, and incorrect assessment of a known risk. Negligence is the only cause that involves failing in an ethical duty.  These concepts are illustrated with five case studies of failures ranging from gross negligence to absolutely unforeseeable events: 1) the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, for which a new possible cause was identified 95 years later (2014); 2) a building collapse in Bangladesh in which over 1,000 people died—one of the worst structural engineering disasters in history; 3) a meteorite strike of a private residence; 4) the crash of the British-French Concorde supersonic airliner, caused by an unlikely tire blow-out; and 5) radiation overdoses received by patients treated by the Thorac-25 medical linear accelerator, caused by errors in the software controlling the machine.