Street sweeping

Image courtesy Sarah Hobbie, University of Minnesota

There are multiple reasons for sweeping streets. However, for water quality purposes, sweeping is best done in spring following fruit drop and autumn following leaf drop. In this image, the street was to be swept the day after the image was taken. Very little water quality benefit will be gained from sweeping this street.

Information: The MPCA is hosting a webinar on street sweeping, Thursday May 13, 9:30-11:00 AM. Link here for more information

Acknowledgements

Information on street sweeping

• Overview of street sweeping
• Recommended street sweeping practices for water quality purposes - Coming in summer, 2021
• Pollutant removal associated with street sweeping
• Survey of street sweeping crediting approaches
• Managing street sweepings
• Case studies for street sweeping
• Supporting information

Street sweeping crediting and Phosphorus Calculator

• Street Sweeping Phosphorus Credit Calculator - Coming in spring, 2021
• Street Sweeping Phosphorus Credit Calculator: User Guide
• Methods for sampling street sweeping material - Standard Operating Procedures
• Methods for calculating pollutant reductions (credits) for street sweeping
• Accounting for phosphorus load reductions with street sweeping
• P8 Street Sweeping Modeling
• TSS credits for street sweeping
• Guidance for incorporating street sweeping into the Minimal Impact Design Standards Calculator and MPCA’s Simple Estimator - Coming in summer, 2021

University of Minnesota research on street sweeping

• Developing a street sweeping credit for stormwater phosphorus source reduction - this page contains information and the final report from the U of M study that led to development of the phosphorus calculator. Researchers: Sarah E. Hobbie, Rachel King, Tessa Belo, Lawrence A. Baker, Jacques C. Finlay.
• Quantifying Nutrient Removal through Targeted Intensive Street Sweeping - summary of Prior Lake study, 2010-2013 (Kalinosky et al., 2013). For additional information related to this project, link here
  • Prior Lake study:Estimating Nutrient Removal by Enhanced Street Sweeping

Links

• Internal
  • Final Street Sweeping: Survey of Crediting Approaches
  • Street sweeping for trees
  • Trees
  • MS4 fact sheet - Street & Parking Lot Sweeping
• External
  • Using leaf collection and street cleaning to reduce nutrients in urban stormwater - This page summarizes on-going research by the United States Geological Survey on street sweeping. Lead researcher - William Selbig.
  • Recommendations of the Expert Panel to Define Removal Rates for Street and Storm Drain Cleaning Practices - Final document produced by Chesapeake Bay expert panel
  • Neat websites and articles for trees

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