Stormwater maintenance briefing: city details assets, staffing and a new sweeper nutrient study
May 13, 2026 | Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina
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Jason Holmes, manager of the right-of-way maintenance division in Transportation, briefed SMAC members on the city’s stormwater maintenance operations and an upcoming nutrient study conducted with NC State.
Holmes said the city maintains roughly 34,000 pipes (about 443 miles), more than 36,000 inlets and more than 4,200 junctions. The right-of-way maintenance division includes specialized crews for construction repairs, catch-basin cleaning, sweeping (7 positions including one night sweeper) and flushing crews. Holmes described CCTV inspection capability (crawler and push cameras), a pole camera program for quick assessments and an in-house construction capacity that completed a recent Corbin Road drainage assistance project using approximately 400 feet of 18-inch concrete pipe.
He also described a nutrient study with NC State that will test material collected by sweepers and from vacuum trucks to estimate nutrient (including nitrogen) loads transported by routine maintenance operations. Holmes said the project is in a data-collection phase and more information will be provided as results become available.
Members praised the partnership model and noted that maintenance is essential to sustaining new green infrastructure projects; Holmes and colleagues emphasized designing projects with maintenance needs in mind.
Why it matters: the briefing quantified the scale of the city’s stormwater assets and highlighted how routine maintenance and data collection are being used to inform water-quality research and asset-management priorities.
Next step: staff will host a facility tour for members and return with more details as the nutrient study progresses.
Holmes said the city maintains roughly 34,000 pipes (about 443 miles), more than 36,000 inlets and more than 4,200 junctions. The right-of-way maintenance division includes specialized crews for construction repairs, catch-basin cleaning, sweeping (7 positions including one night sweeper) and flushing crews. Holmes described CCTV inspection capability (crawler and push cameras), a pole camera program for quick assessments and an in-house construction capacity that completed a recent Corbin Road drainage assistance project using approximately 400 feet of 18-inch concrete pipe.
He also described a nutrient study with NC State that will test material collected by sweepers and from vacuum trucks to estimate nutrient (including nitrogen) loads transported by routine maintenance operations. Holmes said the project is in a data-collection phase and more information will be provided as results become available.
Members praised the partnership model and noted that maintenance is essential to sustaining new green infrastructure projects; Holmes and colleagues emphasized designing projects with maintenance needs in mind.
Why it matters: the briefing quantified the scale of the city’s stormwater assets and highlighted how routine maintenance and data collection are being used to inform water-quality research and asset-management priorities.
Next step: staff will host a facility tour for members and return with more details as the nutrient study progresses.
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