North Providence, RI A hole measuring more than 200-feet long, 75-feet wide and 16-feet deep across from North Providence High School on Mineral Spring Ave. at the new Public Safety facility will soon contain a million-gallon underground stormwater basin to catch stormwater runoff on the site.

DiPrete Engineering, a civil engineering and surveying firm with offices in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, teamed up with StormTrap and J.R. Vinagro Corporation, to design and install the new system.

Because the area is already densely developed and the existing state stormwater system within Mineral Spring Ave. has been maxed out, an oversized system was developed to provide the required treatment and detention necessary for the development. 

“We were working with a very aggressive site layout that left us little room for stormwater treatment,” said Brandon Carr, project manager at DiPrete Engineering. “That, coupled with the high groundwater levels and the elevation changes on site, forced us to seek an innovative method to manage stormwater. There was no room left on the surface so we knew we had to go underground.”

DiPrete Engineering designed the stormwater system and received permitting through Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) and Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT).