Capture, Convey, Store and Treat Stormwater

Advanced Drainage Systems take a wholistic approach to stormwater management.

Capture, Convey, Store and Treat Stormwater

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Every community faces at least the occasional stormwater issue. For many utilities, the struggle is constant.

Advanced Drainage Systems is a leading provider of innovative water management solutions in the stormwater and onsite septic industries, providing drainage solutions for a variety of applications. For over 50 years, the company has been manufacturing innovative and environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional materials, and its products serve a broad range of municipal infrastructure needs.

Founded in 1966, the company operates a global network of 63 manufacturing plants and 32 distribution centers.

Municipal Sewer & Water recently spoke with Brian King, executive vice president of product management and marketing for ADS, about delivering the right stormwater products and solutions to municipal customers.

MSW: What types of needs does ADS address for municipal utilities?

King: Advanced Drainage Systems helps municipalities replace failing infrastructure with the most resilient and sustainable products available. Whether facing an emergency repair due to aging stormwater infrastructure; upgrading existing stormwater infrastructure to meet the increasingly demanding needs of the future; or recovering from an extreme event like a hurricane, wildfire or earthquake, ADS has products to capture, convey, store and treat stormwater.

MSW: What’s the most common problem you see your municipal customers facing in their stormwater control efforts?

King: The most common problems ADS encounters from our municipal customers are emergency repairs for aging infrastructure; planning for resilient infrastructure to handle increasingly frequent 50- and 100-year storm events; and an increasing need for treatment of stormwater prior to returning to rivers, lakes and streams to ensure water quality standards are met. 

MSW: Can you provide some insight on the company’s product development process?

King: At ADS, we are strengthening our product offering by building on our solutions package and advancing our sustainability objectives. We’re thinking about ways to innovate in each phase of the life cycle of a raindrop, whether that’s incorporating recycled materials in new ways, further minimizing our footprint, or developing low impact water treatment products. We lead the stormwater industry with product innovation that addresses customer needs.

We’re also coming up with innovative ways to service our customers, whether that’s through our dedicated fleet, engineered services or our comprehensive suite of online tools to ensure our customers have online support at all hours. We know innovation is about more than just products.

MSW: Are your products designed to address individual issues or work together as a complete system?

King: The versatility of ADS products is that they can be used individually to address a specific problem like an emergency repair of a failed stormwater system, leading to rapid recovery, or they can be installed as a complete system to capture, convey, store and treat stormwater.

MSW: How does ADS take responsibility of managing stormwater from its entry into the system to its release back into the natural environment?

King: ADS covers the life cycle of a raindrop from the moment rain hits the ground until that water is returned to our lakes and streams with products that “Capture, Convey, Store and Treat”:

Capture – Storm water enters our basins and filters work to remove sediment and debris.

Convey – ADS pipes direct water away from parking lots, freeways and fields so areas stay dry, and neighborhoods stay safe.

Store – Chambers ensure water flow is managed appropriately, guarding against flooding.

Treat – ADS water quality products clean water before returning it to lakes and streams.

MSW: What are your most popular products, and how do they improve upon traditional stormwater control mechanisms?

King: Our Capture, Convey, Store and Treat products are most important as they each play a part in a safe stormwater return.

Our most popular stormwater capture market products are our drainage inlet basins in 8- to 36-inch diameters. What sets these products apart? They provide long-lasting service life with watertight joint integrity at the pipe-to-basin interface due to their unique design and resilient PVC body. 

ADS does stormwater pipe differently. ADS manufactures HDPE pipe with recycled content. These pipes are manufactured with HDPE and polypropylene resins, which are durable and resistant against corrosion and abrasion. Joints are the weakest link in any storm sewer or culvert application; however, ADS pipes offer watertight joints that allow for protection against migration of backfill.

Our detention and retention products are engineered to provide durable, long-term solutions for any size project. These products increase usable land by providing space for parking lots, playgrounds and other facilities. With a 75-year minimum service life, this category of products provides easy handling and fast assembly, while still maintaining high strength without excessive weight to ensure cost-effective installation.

The Barracuda Max allows the owners and municipalities a cost-effective method for removing basic sediment and pollutants from their runoff. The use of the Barracuda also starts the conversation that we all need and can do something more to start improving the impact on the environment from urban development.

For higher filtration needs and greater capture, the BayFilter’s high-sediment capacity is a key feature, offering long service life before requiring maintenance. 

MSW: How has your product line evolved to better meet the needs of municipal utilities with aging infrastructure and limited budgets?

King: ADS brings competitive products to the marketplace that encourage robust competition with traditional construction products. This competition among products drives efficiency and cost reduction.

MSW: What sort of support does ADS offer municipal customers?

King: ADS offers a full-range product documentation including drawings, specifications and technical notes, online and mobile design tools, installation guides, a drainage handbook, case studies and engineering support for all ADS products. The ADS Design Studio accessible online and includes the StormTech Design Tool, Water Quality Design Tool: Barracuda, and Nyloplast Drain Basin Configurator. ADS has close relationships with our distributors that allow our engineers to be involved in the design/sell process.

MSW: What’s new for ADS in 2022, and what’s on the horizon?

King: As ADS looks to the future, we are investing a large amount of capital into our manufacturing locations to increase our production capability and continue to supply the market with innovative products that are both sustainable and resilient.

MSW: Is there anything else you’d like people to know?

King: ADS products live at the intersection of resiliency and sustainability. Thermoplastic pipe for stormwater conveyance has the lowest carbon footprint among competing products. As the second largest plastic recycler in North America, ADS recycles more than 500 million pounds of plastic each year, keeping it out of landfills and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions in our supply chain by over 600 tons per year, and we look to nearly double our use of recycled plastic by 2030. 

To learn more about ADS, visit the company’s website at www.adspipe.com.



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