Site Work and Land Services in Womelsdorf, PA

Womelsdorf, PA Success Story

Stormwater Management and Rain Garden for New Development

A small residential developer in Womelsdorf — a Berks County borough along Route 422 in Heidelberg Township, a community in the upper Tulpehocken Creek watershed — engaged J&J Services to install the stormwater management and landscaping components of a new residential development project that included three single-family homes. The Berks County Conservation District’s approval required an infiltration and management system that would control post-development stormwater runoff from the three-lot development.

Challenges
Small residential developments in Berks County’s Tulpehocken Creek watershed face increasing Conservation District scrutiny on stormwater management — the watershed has documented problems with stormwater-driven stream bank erosion, and regulators are requiring that new development demonstrate meaningful runoff reduction. The three-lot Womelsdorf project’s conservation district permit required an integrated stormwater management approach that would function across all three lots collectively rather than three independent single-lot systems. Coordinating the system installation with three separate home construction schedules — at different stages of completion — required careful sequencing to avoid conflicts with active building work.

Solution
J&J Services designed and installed a shared infiltration system that received runoff from all three lots through a common collection and routing network, feeding into two rain garden infiltration areas sized to handle the combined impervious surface area of the development. The rain gardens were excavated, soil-amended, and planted with a Berks County-appropriate native plant palette that would manage the runoff volumes while creating a landscape feature rather than a utilitarian basin. Grading of the collection routing was coordinated with the individual lot grades during the final building grading phase for each home.

Results
The stormwater management system passed Berks County Conservation District final inspection and was approved for permit closeout — clearing the way for certificates of occupancy on all three homes. The rain garden features were specifically noted by the District inspector as a quality installation.

“Getting the stormwater system approved was the last hurdle to certificates of occupancy for all three homes. J&J designed and installed the rain gardens properly and we passed the Conservation District inspection on the first review. That’s what we needed and they delivered it.”
— Developer, Womelsdorf, PA