Office of Highway Development (OHD)

MDE Environmental Site Design Program

ECO developed a Windows-based program to assist the Highway Hydraulics Division (HHD) in adopting a new design process required by the Stormwater Management Act of 2007.  The application uses a database back-end, with XML compatibility, to develop an engineering computation model using environmental site design criteria.

Development of the NPDES Program Management Tools

The Highway Hydraulics Division (HHD) is responsible for meeting the requirements of SHA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit conditions annually.  ECO provided assistance to review the NPDES Strategic Planning database and research the program requirements for several important components that are to be integrated with the NPDES process.  The overall effort aimed to assist the NPDES coordinator in successfully managing the NPDES process by developing a better toolset on the robust database platform.

ECO investigated the potential interoperability issues within HHD in regards to dataflow flexibility and coexistence strategies.  We identified the NPDES performance measures under the permit conditions, examined the current database tools in terms of the input/output requirements, redefined the data structure to be more coherent by correlating data entities to the input/output requirements, designed and developed the prototype model and specifications mapped with the input/output requirements, and distributed the prototype models for testing and implementation.  The program is a web-based system on Microsoft .NET platform while the data is stored in the Oracle database.

Design Build Team Selection Program

ECO provided a consulting service to develop the design build selection ratings program, which is based on SHA’s approved methodology.  This program allows the Innovative Design Division to select the best team for the design build projects.  The program is developed using Microsoft .NET Framework with SQL server database.  The data collection method is flexible because we provided an interactive input mode along with a batch process, which can handle multiple EXCEL files submitted from the evaluation committee members.

Maintaining NPDES Impervious Accounting System

SHA has submitted the NPDES annual reports which represent the commitment and hard work of many individuals within SHA along with the consultant community.  To remain the compliant with this important program and permit condition, Highway Hydraulics Division (HHD) will continue the efforts to develop and enhance the NPDES program tools. ECO provides technical services to maintain, periodically update and develop the computer programs, prepare the documentation of the tools, implement the system at SHA, and support the users including the consultants.