Manholes with vertical PVC pipe inside. Can anyone identify what these are?

Possibly cleanouts for a storm sewer pipe?

At first I thought it might be the hole dug to China, but then I saw "India" on the lid.

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"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

Sanitary sewer cleanouts.

Groundwater inspection wells.

Inspection wells for underground infiltration fields.

Tie a rock to a string and drop it down there slowly. Come back and tell us how deep the thing is, whether the rock got wet, and whether it smelled funny.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

I was originally thinking groundwater monitoring for the gas station, but there appear to already be the standard size (i.e. smaller) monitoring well covers in the gas station lot. A colleague here thinks they are for underground stormwater control. There is standing water in the pvc pipes, approximately 5-6 feet below the surface.

My guess would be that the gas station had leaking tanks and these are monitoring wells to monitor groundwater quality down stream from the gas station. Get samples periodically to sample the water for gasoline.

Agree with oldestguy, that is exactly what they look like.

Most likely storm sewer access due to larger diameter, but could be a monitoring well. Only other idea would be it could have also been part of a soil vapour extraction system.

When one goes to install something like this and you are far away from your shop, you use the best that you can find. Most likely done by a test boring crew.

I was originally thinking groundwater monitoring for the gas station, but there appear to already be the standard size (i.e. smaller) monitoring well covers in the gas station lot. A colleague here thinks they are for underground stormwater control. There is standing water in the pvc pipes, approximately 5-6 feet below the surface.

Click to expand...

Based on this, there's two likely options:

1) groundwater monitoring for effluent (as oldestguy says)
2) inspection port for an underground stormwater infiltration system, to determine that it's infiltrating stormwater properly

If you're in an area of high groundwater, there's probably no way to differentiate without looking at the site plans. If you're in an area of deep groundwater, then the answer is probably (2), and further likely that you discovered evidence that it's not working as intended.




Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -