Response to public comments so far…

We have received a number of comments in the “Public Comment” section of the website.  Before we start into the thick of the real drafting of the Ordinance Update, I want to respond and acknowledge the comments we have received, and to the extent I can let commenters know what is being done about the comment.  Rather than respond to each comment individually, we have “collapsed” similar comments into a single concern.

1. Comments on BMPs:  Volume credits should be provided for BMPs, permeable pavers should be encouraged, wetlands should be given credit for higher evapotranspiration and since they are more effective than dry ponds, guidance should be provided on soak away systems.  Response:  We are looking for all opportunities to properly credit the multiple benefits of BMPs as we proceed into Drafting Ordinance Update language.
2. Comments on Redevelopment:  Redevelopment exemptions are too difficult to achieve, they should be expanded and simplified. Redevelopment should be encouraged to avoid sprawl.  Response:  Requirements related to redevelopment are being re-thought, recognizing that redevelopment is something that current trends in water quality and stormwater management, as well as urban planning, would encourage.
3. Comments on Easements and Deed Restrictions:  The Ordinance should clearly state when and where BMP and SMA easements and deed restrictions are required for both public and private development sites, and, how they shall be recorded.  Response: Noted.
4. Comments on Restoration:  There should be a separate category for projects that are for restoration work.  Response:  We have come to recognize that restoration, along with a whole class of projects whose purpose is to improve the ecological health of the project site, should be treated differently.  Watch for work under the project category “Naturalization”, as the real purpose of that category is to respond to this comment.
5. Comments on CLOMR:  CLOMR requirement should be eliminated for BFE reductions when there is no floodway impact.  Response:  This will be considered in discussions on Floodplain/Floodway regulations.  The enabling legislation says we must be consistent with IDNR.
6. Comments on FEQ:  Consider alternatives to FEQ.  Response:  The required use of FEQ will be made clearer in the ordinance update.  As stated in the Watershed Plan, alternative models will be acceptable where appropriate.
7. Comments on restrictors:  Eliminate small diameter/small volume restrictors that are prone to failure and need constant maintenance.  Response:  While we will review this situation carefully, the ordinance has been in place a long time and several designs have come into common usage that do not seem to be the source of a lot of complaints.
8. Comments on Roadways:  Roadway procedures should be formalized.  Response:  We all agree, and we are looking closely at that.

As new comments are received, we will post additional responses.

The National Ordinance Review Technical Memorandum has been finalized and posted to this site for several months. The Review helped to identify innovative practices and standards used by progressive stormwater programs across the Country, and included a number of recommendations for the update to DuPage’s Stormwater and Floodplain Ordinance. The key recommendations that may be considered for incorporation into the current update have been pulled into a separate document, with additional details and backup information that may be helpful.

We want to insure that the recommendations serve as input for the Steering Committee as it prepares to draft the ordinance update, and therefore we are posting this document (see attached) to this website so that each point can be discussed and refined.  We ask that Steering Committee members, designated municipal representatives, and the public provide comments on the recommendations pertaining to their feasibility for incorporation into the DuPage County Stormwater and Floodplain Ordinance. Your comments will be reviewed closely as decisions are made pertaining to each point.

Recommendations for Stormwater Ordinance Structure

EPA is announcing plans to initiate national rulemaking to establish a program to reduce stormwater discharges from new development and redevelopment and make other regulatory improvements to strengthen its stormwater program.

EPA has issued a Federal Register Notice (PDF) seeking stakeholder input to help EPA shape a program to reduce stormwater impacts. Input will be provided through both written comments and during a series of public listening sessions. As described in the FR Notice, EPA seeks input on the following preliminary regulatory considerations:

• Expand the area subject to federal stormwater regulations
• Establish specific requirements to control stormwater discharges from new development and redevelopment
• Develop a single set of consistent stormwater requirements for all MS4s
• Require MS4s to address stormwater discharges in areas of existing development through retrofitting the sewer system or drainage area with improved stormwater control measures
• Explore specific stormwater provisions to protect sensitive areas

Please see the website below for more information.

http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater/rulemaking.cfm

The Steering Committee has settled on a “structure” for the Ordinance update.  The Stormwater Ordinance will be reformatted to create a series of “upfront” sections that will steer an applicant directly to the applicable regulatory section for the specific development, and specific site characteristics under consideration.  This will be partly in the form of a matrix and partly in the form of text under appropriate front-end articles.

An applicant would first characterize the site he intends to build the project on.  The steering committee approved the following categories that pertain to the site pre-project.

1. The degree to which a site is already “developed”, as indicated by the “Total Impervious Area” (TIA) of the site.  Degrees of development threshold distinctions are contemplated at the less than 15% TIA, 15% to 50% TIA, and greater than 50% TIA.
2. Whether or not a site includes “Waters of DuPage County”.
3. Whether of not a site includes a “Regulatory floodplain”.

Note that a site may be included under more than one category.

Next, the applicant must characterize the proposed project.  The Steering Committee has given a conditional nod to the following project characterizations as a starting point to be used in determining which Ordinance requirements apply.

1. Those not meeting the requirements of the categories below will be classified by one or more of the following:
   1. Change in Impervious area
   2. Grade changes
   3. Modification of existing structures
   4. Construction of new structures
   5. Modifications of existing buildings
   6. Construction of new buildings
   7. Linear Transportation Project-Vehicle and pedestrian facilities in linear land holdings created for that purpose.
   8. Naturalization Project-A project, or a portion of a larger project, whose purpose is
      1. Streambank Stabilization
      2. Wetland Mitigation
      3. Wetland Mitigation Bank
      4. Water Quality Improvement
      5. Stream, Stream habitat, and Upland habitat Restoration; and Forestry management activities
      6. Watershed Plan Implementation Projects

Based on the characteristics of the site, and the characteristics of the project, the applicant will be directed to specific articles that will define limitations, methodologies, standards and mitigation requirements where appropriate.  It is anticipated at that all developments will have certain requirements they must meet, some of them procedural and some regulatory.  Procedural requirements that might apply to all include such things as the form and content of a permit submittal, development security, Maintenance requirements, violations, appeals, variances and the like.   Universal Regulatory requirements might include such topics as erosion and sediment control and incorporation of Best Management Practices.  Within those topics, specific requirements can be tailored to the site and project classifications as appropriate, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.

This concept is a starting point in the Update, and of course will be more fully developed as we proceed.  What do you think?  What problems do your foresee with this approach as applied to your own community?

It appears that the majority of the effects on stormwater quantity and quality can be tracked either explicitly or implicitly through the measurement of the percentage of impervious area on a zoning parcel of land.  In reviewing literature and studies done in this regard, a few observations may prove useful in the ordinance rewrite.

• Total Impervious Area (TIA) is often distinguished from Effective Impervious Area (EIA) when tracking impacts.  EIA is the portion of the TIA that has improved drainage area.  It is similar to concepts like “Directly connected Impervious Area” found in TR-55.  Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit of investigation to separate EIA from TIA on a project parcel, and often generalized ratios dependent on description of the land use are used rather than direct measurement.
• An on-going challenge in stormwater Ordinance language is finding language for and descriptions of “Development” that make meaningful distinctions technically, practically and administratively.  One potential way out of this on-going problem is to use the % impervious of a project as a threshold trigger for certain mitigation requirements.  Here is an example:
  • Define any project that is less than 10% TIA as not requiring a site runoff storage facility.
  • Define projects that increase the % impervious area of a project site as requiring a site runoff storage facility to mitigate the change, if the TIA is greater than 10%.
  • If a project can be shown to significantly reduce the EIA,  then a site runoff storage facility may not be required.
  • These are only examples, but consider something like the holdings of the Forest Preserve District, or the trend toward Low Impact Design.
  • The overwhelming majority of studies show that percent impervious can be correlated with the “health” of streams,  with nearly all studies beginning to register stream impairments as low as 10% impervious.  While that is the “bad news”, it also tells us what is and is not likely to further degrade water quality.  Many studies site the percent impervious threshold for characterization of land use as rural/undeveloped less than 10% impervious,  suburban as up to 50% impervious and urban as greater than 50% impervious.  Is a site that has been urban for a number of years, likely to degrade or improve conditions if a new project on the site is approved as an urban land use but at a reduced percent impervious?  Certainly a trend toward a watershed scale reduction in impervious surfaces has already been recognized as a goal by the EPA and as a valid approach to meeting NPDES requirements.
  • What about flooding?  Don’t all developments, of any kind, increase flooding?  The answer is: not necessarily if one considers that the drainage of an existing land use has often been accomplished by existing drainage infrastructure for years.   Consider many of our older “downtown” areas.  While localized drainage problems may exist,  drainage infrastructure out of the downtown area is usually “mature” at this stage, and a new outlet or modification of the existing outlet into a stream is probably not proposed.  If an urban project is discharging to the same storm sewer as the previous urban land-use, is not causing its neighbors additional damages, and has actually reduced the volume of pollutants and runoff volume, doesn’t that embody the trend we desire?  Considering the current push towards denser and more intense downtown land use,  Does a pond or an underground tank really sound like wise use of infrastructure dollars?

Where is this discussion going?  I am wondering if we can’t eliminate the often confusing pages and pages of ordinance language with something more direct, like percent impervious, that is not only more universally recognizable but more directly associated with the impacts we wish to continue regulating.  Can we replace the references to single family residential, multifamily, commercial, industrial, institutional land use with thresholds of percent impervious?  Is that an improvement, or just a new complication?  What do you think?

Welcome to the first “official” post on the Stormwater Update blog.  “We” are a team of Consultants, The County Staff, and representatives of the Municipalities within DuPage County.   We are beginning a process, in which we will be looking at and potentially modifying stormwater regulation in DuPage County.    The objective is to retool the Countywide Stormwater and Floodplain Ordinance so that it better reflects DuPage County in 2009 and going forward.  The County places a very high value on the quality of life in the county,  and the current Ordinance reflects this in its’ “Purposes”.   Stormwater Quantity, Quality, and valuable environmental resources fall under the current regulation.  

We want to look at “what we do now”, and “what we should be doing”  from as many perspectives as we can.  Above all,  the commitment to the health, safety and welfare of those who live, work, find recreation, own property, and own and operate businesses in DuPage County cannot be compromised.   That statement though is too broad,  and to be effective the Stormwater Regulations must ask:  What is the “right” level of regulation?   How can the timelines for the processes of permitting be made reflective of and appropriate to the differing levels of complexity that Stormwater regulation implies?  What about new state/Federal mandates?  These are some of the questions that will drive the next 15-months of work. 

We highly value your input and feedback as we move forward.  You will see that each of the posts will be available for comment by representatives of every community that has a role in implementing these regulations.  Just as importantly, all who view this website are invited to comment by clicking on “Provide Us Your Comments” located on this webpage just to the left of this box.   All of the documents that are in their final form will be made available to read through this website, and our goal is to be open and transparent about where this process is headed and what it is intended to achieve. 

We will be reaching out to many stakeholder groups, soliciting comment, and anticipate a lively discussion on many issues.  That is why such a long period has been set aside for this effort.  Like any process,  we have to make sure that the right people are fully engaged at the right time. 

Please follow along with us as we take the first real steps toward shaping Stormwater Management in DuPage County for the future.