Talk:Retention basin

Merge with Detention basin request
I did think about this before creating two articles. I decided that having one article would be the wrong direction to take. While they are both water managment structures, they function in different ways. One is almost always dry, the other always contains water. One is usually in a desert and the other in areas of high rainfall. One is built as a result of flood control planning, the other to meet zoning or land use requirements. One is mostly for flood water control and the other is for rain water management. The categories will that apply will also differ. Both can get encylopedic articles written about them and, while needs some cleanup, are fairly decent ones as it stands. Also people in different parts of the country don't even know the other exists, so combining them could tend to confuse things. That is especially true today since many in the US think they are one in the same. You would still need a redirect, so not much might be gained. Wikipedia is not paper. Vegaswikian 16:32, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * No additional comments so I'm going to pull the merge requests. Vegaswikian 02:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Merge from Retention pond
Retention pond includes both retention and detention basins and should be combined into the larger more detailed articles. A redirect should be left. Vegaswikian 06:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I would be okay with that, Retention basin is a more generic term. Segregate all the stuff in Retention pond and create a new section under Retention basin. --Rob 14:22, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I have merged in most of what was missing. There probably needs to be some moving around of some parts of the text. But I think that retention pond can be changed to a redirect at this point. Vegaswikian 23:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Done &mdash; it should be noted that even though people aren't supposed to be around these structures, numerous drownings are often still attributed to them every year. --Rob 23:53, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
 * That comment is true for all dual use flood water control structures. The fact that I did not add it does not mean that you can not.  I do think that drownings happen every place water is present, from a bucket of water to a bathtub to an ocean, so does it need to be mentioned in every article of an encylopedia?  Vegaswikian 00:10, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Combination Detention/Retention
It is my understanding that a detention basin is a basin from which water leaves through an outlet (ie- pipe), while a retention basin is a basin from which water leaves only via infiltration and evapo-transpiration.

A detention basin can be a drain-dry detention basin (as most are, and as this article implies that all are). But there can also be a wet detention basin, from which water leaves through a pipe located with its invert well above the bottom of the pond. For example: an inlet pipe, invert elevation 500.00, enters a detention pond that stretches from 500.00 down to 480.00. An outlet pipe is located with its invert at 490.00, thus water always remains in the basin from EL 480.00 to 490.00. During/after a major precipitation event, this basin is filled to an elevation higher than 490.00 and then slowly lets water into the receiving channel. (It would be som much easier to draw this.) Since water leaves through an outlet pipe, the basin must be considered a detention basin (not retention), but is a wet detention basin.

To summarize my understanding....

-Detention Basins can be wet (outlet pipe invert above bot. of basin) or dry (outlet pipe invert at bottom of basin).

-Retention Basin are always wet, no outlet pipe.

131.183.21.228 22:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that a detention basin is always of the dry type. If it retains water, then it is a retention basin with a controlled level.  Retention basins can and do have an outlet.  Maybe an expert can provide some better information.  Vegaswikian 23:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * You can have a wet detention pond. Rather than just drain storm water, they also remove pollutants. They aren't necessarily removing pollutants to retain water which would be the primary difference. --208.44.234.50 17:41, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The first portion of this article describes retention ponds as constructed wetlands. This portion of the entry is too narrowly focussed on a single segment of the range of retention designs. While some retention ponds are constructed wetlands, many many other forms exist ranging from engineered geometric ponds with concrete linings to dammed natural formations such as valleys.

Retention Basins vs. Stormwater Detention Vaults; Infiltration; References; Related Edits
Some notes on edits and templates added on March 31, 2008:
 * Some text describing stormwater detention vaults (underground vaults) was recently added to this article. These vaults are not retention basins--they look different from basins and are built differently.  Some or many of the underground storage devices/vaults are "off the shelf" commercial products. A separate article is needed for underground detention vaults (and possibly the related commercial products).  Also, diagrams or photos of commercial devices should only be used if there is no non-commercial source.
 * It seems that a lot of the currently available technical information available on underground stormwater storage is from the manufacturers of these vaults and related underground storage devices. I've seen little documentation on design and performance of these products from a water quality perspective; they are not included in the 1998 WEF/ASCE manual. There is a fact sheet on underground storage vaults published by the Federal Highway Administration. "Fact Sheet - Detention Tanks and Vaults." I guess some vendor-supplied references are acceptable if they are the only sources available, but we should try to cite non-commercial sources where possible, such as government agencies, WEF/ASCE, technical journals and conference proceedings.
 * Other text in this article needs to be consolidated and reorganized. The "Specialized types" section is just a list and as such adds to the confusion about various types of basins.  I propose deleting this section unless some text can be added to clarify things.
 * The mention of stormwater infiltration in an article about retention basins is somewhat confusing. Retention basins--and sometimes dry detention basins--may incidentally infiltrate some volume to groundwater, but basins designed principally to infiltrate are typically called infiltration basins.  That's what they're usually called in the many BMP manuals published by state & local governments, WEF/ASCE, etc.  (Sometimes grouped together with infiltration trenches.) We need a separate article for infiltration BMPs, too.
 * If no one else jumps in first, I will get some new stormwater BMP articles started, when I get the chance. Also, Detention basin needs some similar editing.  I recommend we use terminology widely found in the stormwater publications such as WEF/ASCE and state manuals.  There is a useful categorization of BMP types on the International BMP Database website. www.bmpdatabase.org Some day it would be nice to link all these stormwater articles together with a template, infobox, etc.  Moreau1 (talk) 03:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well I created Stormwater structures as a start. I'm not sure what should be included and how to split these up.  But at least with the start here, we can group all of the articles that should be included in one place and highlight the missing ones and rearange as needed.  As to terminology, not all of us have access to your source so it is a little more difficult for many editors to do some formal changes. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for setting up the template. I'll add some more entries based on the ASCE BMP database categories.  We may need some subgroups within the template besides containment and flow control.  Note that settling basin is typically a component in a drinking water treatment system rather than a stormwater treatment technology.  (I added it to the "See also" list because of its similar nomenclature.)  For that reason I recommend removing it from this template.  It could be part of a drinking water treatment technology template, however. Moreau1 (talk) 02:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've created new pages for infiltration basin and stormwater detention vault, for the reasons described above. I've deleted text on underground detention and other inaccurate info from the retention basin article.  Further expansion is needed to explain how retention basins improve water quality, advantages/disadvantages compared to other types of BMPs, etc. Additions are welcome. Moreau1 (talk) 03:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Retention/Detention (Water Quality & Quantity)
In 1973 I attended a hearing in Tallahassee, Florida. The hearing was being conducted by the then Department of Environmental Regulation (DER) (now replaced by the Water Management Districts) to address the continuing degradation of the coastal waters. At that hearing the DER environmentalists informed the audience that from then on all persons desiring to modify any parcel of land in Florida would have to provide to the DER evidence of all anticipated pollutants to be expected (from numbers of drops of oil from cars to quantity of dog droppings; from fertilizer quantities to pounds of pollutants expected to be deposited on roofs in the form of dust). All quantities were to be quantified as to their constituents and a total load of all pollutants was to be determined: from nitrogen to phosphorus and everything in between. Next the developer had to have an appropriate storm water treatment plant designed and the design delivered to Tallahassee for review and approval. No development (from a gas station to a many acre development) could be implemented prior to such approval, and the final treatment facility was to be inspected by Tallahassee prior to the development being allowed to operate.

The meeting was then opened up for all in attendance to speak. The developers in attendance were not at all pleased, a typical land owner addressed the hearing "If you (Florida) have a water quality problem, you fix it. Don't come to me to solve YOUR problem. You are welcome to purchase land from me and build your @#$% treatment plant."

When the microphone came to me, I proposed the following: "I have run enough HEC2, STORM, and SWMM computer programs to know that 95% of all pollutants are washed off of a property and carried in the runoff from a 1-inch rainfall. If we capture the runoff from a 1-inch rainfall and detain it for three days, the pollutants will settle out and the oils will burn off." And so, the current water quality criterion was born. This detention of the runoff from a 1-inch rain requirement was adopted by the State of Florida and also has since been adopted by several other states. Due to this being such a simple formula, the developers had no excuse but to implement water quality improvements and the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic are far cleaner today.

The water quality volume needs to be drained down through a filter and the volume restored in 72 hours, this will prevent mosquitoes from breeding in the water. Water quantity control is handled seperately (usually above the water quality volume) with its own discharge. So, in Florida, the basins are called "retention/detention basins" due to the fact that they detain the increased runoff due to the modified surface area (and discharge it at the pre-development rate) and they also retain the pollutants. John Herrick, PEJohnherrick (talk) 04:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge from Stormwater management pond article
The Stormwater management pond article describes detention ponds similarly, with a few additional technical details, but the article has no references. The few additional details in that article can be added to the Retention basin article, aassuming that appropriate references can be found. A redirect would be created for the former article. Moreau1 (talk) 18:42, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I support merging contents of the stormwater management pond article; but rather than a single redirect, I suggest the stormwater management pond article might better be converted to a disambiguation page listing the various types of stormwater management ponds with links to their respective articles. Thewellman (talk) 03:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Also agree with the merge. The disambiguation page idea is reasonable, but Retention basin already contains text-based disambiguation in the 2nd paragraph, which seems to be sufficient and clear. Klbrain (talk) 23:42, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

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"Draft:SWMPs" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Draft:SWMPs. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 2 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Bacon 02:23, 2 September 2020 (UTC)