Street sweeping

Image courtesy Sarah Hobbie, University of Minnesota

• Overview of street sweeping
• Recommended street sweeping practices for water quality purposes - Coming in summer, 2021
• Pollutant removal associated with street sweeping
  • Methods for calculating pollutant reductions (credits) for street sweeping
  • Calculating pollutant removal credits for street sweeping - Coming spring, 2021
  • Tool for calculating phosphorus removal from street sweeping - Coming in spring, 2021
    • Street Sweeping Credit Calculator: Quick User Guide
  • Methods for sampling street sweeping material - Standard Operating Procedures
• Guidance for incorporating street sweeping into the Minimal Impact Design Standards Calculator and MPCA’s Simple Estimator - Coming in summer, 2021
• Managing street sweepings
• Case studies for street sweeping
• Links for street sweeping
• Supporting information

Survey of street sweeping practices

The MPCA conducted a survey of cities to determine their street sweeping practices, their interest in a street sweeping credit, and their ability to implement different methods for crediting sweeping. We have not yet fully analyzed the data, but some general conclusions include the following.

• 75 cities responded to the survey and indicated they operate a sweeping program. This was a response rate of close to 50 percent. The responses were distributed geographically across the state and covered a wide range of city sizes (large to small).
• About 78 percent indicated they would be likely to participate in a crediting program
• All but 7 cities can track sweeping information, but 66 percent said they cannot relate material collected to a specific geographic area. This is a question we likely will follow-up with, since being able to relate material to a geographic location is potentially a way of targeting sweeping efforts.
• Most cities estimate volume or mass of material collected, but few measure volume or mass or have the ability to measure dry weight of material collected
• Most cities sweep quarterly or less and most do not specifically sweep in response to fall leave drop

The summary information can be found here.

Related pages

• Trees
• Phosphorus
• Total Suspended Solids (TSS) in stormwater
• Street sweeping for trees
• Neat websites and articles for trees
• Guidance for managing sediment and wastes collected by pretreatment practices: Note - this page contains some information on disposal of material collected in pretreatment practices, include information on street sweepings