Why grading and drainage is needed in Empire
Grading and drainage matters more where the public system is still being assembled. In 2013 the County described a four-phase project bringing curb, gutter, accessible returns, new street sections and a positive storm drain collection system to the whole of Empire, with the first phase complete. Its 2024 to 2028 capital plan still carries an Empire storm drain trunk line to the river with three million dollars appropriated and the total cost and completion both marked as to be determined.
What the town drains to has been described two different ways, and neither is built out. The 2013 filing had the collection system crossing under State Route 132 from the north side of the community to the south, to reach an irrigation district river outfall on the Tuolumne. The 2014 negative declaration instead described sidewalks and bio-retention swales that store storm water and treat it through natural soil percolation, discharging to no state water at all. On a private lot, either way, the water has to be dealt with where it lands.
The ground underneath takes water well, which is the one advantage here. Soil mapping around the town centre gives Dinuba sandy loam, Greenfield sandy loam, Hanford sandy loams and fine sandy loams and Tujunga loamy sand, all on slopes of nought to three percent and ranging from moderately well drained to somewhat excessively drained. Sand that drains is what makes a swale, a dry well or a French drain worth building here rather than a longer run of pipe.
Four in ten homes here were built before 1970 and another four in ten in the 1970s. The median year built is 1972, and the lots that went with that stock were shaped before the community had a collection system to drain to. Half a century of added patios, carports, fences and raised beds later, the fall the building code asks for next to a foundation has usually been lost in two or three specific places rather than across the whole lot.
A small commercial lot can be regraded to catch its own water. A County review of an existing retail building on Yosemite Boulevard in January 2023 described removing parking from the highway right of way, repaving the lot to nineteen stalls, new sidewalk and curb work along the A Street and highway frontages and a valley gutter stormwater capture system within the parking lot itself. That is the shape of the work on a tight frontage: a shallow section that collects, and a defined point it goes to.
The County's 2024 to 2028 capital plan carries an Empire storm drain trunk line to the river at three million dollars appropriated, with total cost and completion both recorded as to be determined. Until it is in, a property holds its own rain.
Grading and drainage, as delivered in Empire
Empire is six road miles east of the Modesto base along Yosemite Boulevard. Every job leaves the same record whatever the size of the lot: levels before and after, photographs of each drain before backfill, and the water test.
The contractor assigned to the request walks the property, and rain is the best weather for it. Site visit scheduled at a time that suits you. Start date set in the written estimate. The fall of the ground at each wall, the state of any gutter or inlet on the frontage, the downspout outlets and the place the water is expected to go are all recorded.
White marking goes down over the planned excavation, the notification center is given at least two working days and no more than fourteen calendar days, and no ground is turned until every operator on the ticket has answered. Any high priority installation within ten feet is met on site by its operator before digging, and a ticket is renewed by its 28th day.
Empire is unincorporated, so the grading permit comes from the Stanislaus County Building Permits Division in Modesto. Plans and any soil report the building official wants are the owner's.
Any trench of five feet or more takes a protective system, spoil is kept two feet from the edge, and a sidewalk or slab is supported before it is undercut.
Unsuitable material is removed, fill is placed in lifts and compacted without organic matter or oversize rock, and the backfill at a foundation allows for settlement afterwards. The finished surface is then cut to falls that run the whole way to an outlet rather than dying out halfway.
Gravel, filter fabric and bedded pipe are laid, the channel is encased, and the discharge goes by gravity or pump to an approved point.
The finished falls are checked, water is run through the new drains, disturbed ground is stabilised, and the County building official signs the work off. The owner keeps the grades, the photographs and the permit record.
Where grading and drainage is needed in Empire
Empire is 1.168 square miles of lettered streets, two commercial roads and a rail line, and the drainage story differs on each of them.
Yosemite Boulevard (SR 132) commercial strip
The County concentrates the town's commercial uses along Yosemite Boulevard and Santa Fe Avenue, with about 14,900 vehicles a day passing at Santa Fe Drive and E Street. Frontages on a state highway have a fixed edge to work to, so what can be changed is the fall from the building line out to it.
Yosemite Boulevard between A and B Streets
A County filing in January 2023 for a 3,720 square foot retail building here described repaving the lot to nineteen stalls, new sidewalk on the A Street and highway frontages and a valley gutter stormwater capture system in the parking lot, on a site backing onto an eighteen-foot alley. A rear alley is where that kind of lot usually drains.
Santa Fe Avenue and the rail line
The second of the two commercial streets, with the rail corridor beside it and the Tuolumne River and Dry Creek named as the waterways in the County's storm drain filing. Track ballast and a road edge both sit higher than the yards behind them, which is why water stops where it does.
Southeast lettered streets, 3rd Street to Sunshine Court
The block bounded by 3rd Street, Sunshine Court, E Street and I Street, where the City of Modesto filed in 2026 to replace water mains for service reliability and fire flow. A street opened for new main is a street whose surface levels change, and the private frontages either side are re-tied to them.
Abbie Street rezone sites
Five parcels of vacant land the County proposes to rezone for residential development at 25 units an acre, among fourteen Empire parcels totalling 13.44 acres moved from low-density to medium-high density. Vacant ground that has drained across itself for decades needs a pad, a fall and an outlet before anything is built on it.
I Street and the Empire Library
The library sits at 98 I Street, and the County lists a new library of about 5,000 square feet among projects it has completed. A public building on a small lettered street has short frontages and little room for fall, so the ground within ten feet of the wall is what carries the drainage.
South Avenue
An emergency shelter with 73 beds stands here, and the County's 2023 point-in-time count put the highest unincorporated homeless count in Empire. A building in constant use needs its inlets clear and its thresholds above the surrounding ground, because a blocked drain shows up first at a doorway that is used all day.
Codoni Road at Highway 132
The pipe monitored in the 2003 capacity study that found the sanitary district's main line to Modesto at 90 percent of flow capacity runs at this junction. Roadside ground beside a state highway has a crown that sheds toward it, so the low point of the adjoining parcel is usually well inside the property line.
MID Lateral No. 1
The County's rezone maps label the irrigation district's Lateral No. 1 and an aqueduct running past the rezone sites. A private site has no right to send storm water into a district facility, so a drain near one is taken to an approved point that the district or the County accepts instead.
McClure Road
The school district office is here, and a 2021 state filing covered curb ramps, sidewalks and pedestrian signals on State Route 132 with McClure Road as the cross street. A new curb ramp sets a fixed level at the back of walk, and the yard or lot behind it has to be graded to meet it.
Claus Road and the Modesto sphere
The whole sanitary district lies inside the City of Modesto's sphere of influence, with the City recorded as having no plans to annex in the foreseeable future, and Claus Road carries 13,300 vehicles a day on the back leg. Which office reviews a grading plan on a parcel here is confirmed before scope is written.
Tuolumne River edge
The original Empire City stood on the opposite, south bank of the Tuolumne, and the planned storm drain system was to cross under the highway to reach an irrigation district river outfall. River-edge ground is the lowest in the area, and fill and grading in a mapped flood hazard area follow rules of their own.
Grading and drainage sub-services available in Empire
Questions from Empire property owners and managers
That depends on which part of the community, because the public system is still being built out. The County described a four-phase collection project for the whole town with the first phase complete, a later filing described bio-retention swales letting water soak into the soil rather than discharging it, and the current capital plan carries a trunk line to the river with no completion date. On a private site the water is held, shed and taken to a point the County accepts.
Building and grading permits for Empire come from the Stanislaus County Building Permits Division at 1010 10th Street in Modesto, because the community is unincorporated. The sphere of influence is a planning boundary, and the agency review recorded for the area gives responsibility for land use decisions to the County and the City together. The office that will review a particular parcel is confirmed on the site visit before any plan is drawn.
Better than most. Soil mapping around the town centre returns Dinuba sandy loam, Greenfield sandy loam, Hanford sandy loams and fine sandy loams and Tujunga loamy sand, all on slopes of nought to three percent, described as ranging from moderately well drained to somewhat excessively drained. That is why swales, dry wells and gravel drains are worth building here. It does not remove the need for fall: water still has to reach them.
It can if the ground between the two does not fall away from the wall. A swale is designed to hold water briefly and let it soak in, so its water level rises during a storm and drops afterwards. What keeps that away from a building is the band of ground immediately next to the foundation, which is sloped away from it over a set distance under the building code, with a lower minimum for a swale or paving inside that band.
Around four in ten Empire homes were built before 1970 and another four in ten in the 1970s, with a median year built of 1972. Those lots were shaped by hand, on ground with nothing much to drain to, and fifty years of added patios, carports, fences and raised beds since. Surveying the existing levels against the wall line usually finds the fall has been lost at two or three points rather than across the whole yard.
The San Joaquin Valley air district's earthmoving rule covers construction, demolition, excavation and other earthmoving across the county, and holds visible dust to 20 percent opacity. Sites are pre-watered and worked in phases, unpaved haul roads are watered and speed-limited, and disturbed ground left unused is stabilised. On the larger sites the rule names, a dust control plan goes to the district and has to be approved before work starts.
Grading and drainage near Empire
