Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:45 am
If they're there, then my crews haven't said anything to me about it.
Although I've seen them in DIs a lot, I've only seen them in manholes once or twice. I don't recall ever running into one that's locked, so I guess I've been lucky.
I once encountered one in a DI for which an invert was needed immediately. The filter fabric was held down outside the inlet by a big ring of sandbags and dirt spoil. It would have taken an hour or more to remove and replace the ballast, so I just pulled the grate and cut a hole in the fabric big enough to identify and measure to the pipe flowline. I sort of patched up the hole by rearranging the slack fabric. The winter rains were already history, so I don't think I did too much damage.
If I run into a locked filter in the future, I'll do what I do for bolted manhole lids: report it as "not accessible" on the map and let the owner make arrangements for entry if he really needs the invert.