Evolution of Stormwater Management
Sophistication and implementation, part 3
This article is the final installment of a three-part series addressing the current state of stormwater management in the Atlanta area. Part 1 focused on stormwater management issues; part 2 focused on redevelopment and professional certification; and part 3 looks at the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and its implications for stormwater management.
The series focuses on causes, effects, and remedies leading to the establishment and refinement of administrative procedures, professional trust, proactive approaches, and the elimination of obstacles.
Endangered Species Act
Part 1 of this series discussed issues ranging from floodplains to best management practices (BMPs), to stream buffers and field inventories, to professional rights and responsibilities; part 2 addressed challenges associated with innovative applications of accepted methodologies and who has (or wants) the responsibility and authority to deem which application should be allowed—and when. This closing segment highlights the Etowah Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), a watershed program that supports the ESA for the most aquatically diverse watershed in the nation. The HCP shows that progress can be made and success gleaned by identifying and dealing with obstacles.
The Etowah HCP
The Etowah River, located north of the Atlanta metropolitan area, is one of the most biologically diverse river systems in the nation. It contains 76 native species, several of which are found nowhere else in the world. As development has taken place, several species are now gone, including sturgeon and most of the 50 species of mussels that once were found in the watershed. The development activities that have had the greatest impact have been agriculture and water reservoirs, which have led to sedimentation and fragmented habitat. Three fish found in the Etowah River are protected by the ESA: the Etowah darter, the amber darter, and the Cherokee darter. These darters thrive in stream segments with rocky bottoms and clean water.
The ESA was signed into law in 1972 to prohibit the take of species, both directly from activities such as fishing and indirectly from activities that lead to habitat destruction. The ESA allows for individuals, cities, and counties to write HCPs to define how they will provide protection for the endangered species and allowing for some incidental taking. These HCPs are approved by the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), and without them, developers and communities can face long and costly delays while trying to comply with the ESA. The benefit in developing a regional HCP, as has been done for the Etowah River, is that a more efficient process can be employed. These efforts started in 2002 and included local water authorities, members of the development and industry communities, regulatory groups, and the University of Georgia. The result was a group of seven ordinances and policies aimed at minimizing and mitigating the impacts of development, with an emphasis on the three species of darters to be protected:
- Stormwater management
- Stream buffer ordinance
- Erosion and sediment control
- Utility stream crossing policy
- Road stream crossing policy
- Water supply planning
- Monitoring and adaptive management
For a detailed description of those ordinances and policies, see www.etowahhcp.org. The following are capsule descriptions.
Stormwater Management. This ordinance addresses post-development runoff and includes performance standards for water-quality protection, channel protection, and flood protection, with an emphasis on limiting the volume (not the peak rate) of runoff in watersheds that are most important to the survival of the darters.
Stream Buffer Ordinance. Two different ordinances have been developed, one for the more mountainous counties and one for those that are more similar to those of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
Erosion and Sedimentation Control.This is being addressed through a group of six standard operating procedures to help enforce existing erosion and sedimentation control regulations and a grading ordinance that allows for a maximum amount of disturbed area at one point in time and prevents disturbance of steeper slopes.
Utility Stream Crossing Policy. This policy promotes direction boring in place of standard open-trench cutting of utility lines across streams to reduce disturbance and sediment loads that result from such disturbances.
Road Stream Crossing Policy.To avoid disrupting fish migration and creating fragmented populations that can lead to local extinctions of fish, this policy requires bridges for streams that drain more than 20 square miles. It also requires that culverts be oversized, with their inverts set below grade to provide for more natural stream bottoms and no excessive velocities.
Water Supply Planning. This type of planning is intended to avoid permanently fragmenting habitat on large scales. A procedure has been established for evaluating the impacts of potential reservoir locations.
Monitoring and Adaptive Management.The HCP requires that monitoring take place to assess the true effectiveness of the seven policies and ordinances. The information gathered is used to implement an adaptive management process that will allow for ineffective or inefficient program components to be modified.
The Drivers
As with any program of this importance and magnitude, several key issues come to the surface:
- Compliance with the ESA
- Coordination with other established programs
- Improving the permitting process
- Managing the liability associated with a new process
- Identifying and applying protection and restorative measures
The following subsections provide some of the details associated with those issues.
Compliance With the ESA. The Etowah HCP is a voluntary process. Compliance with the ESA is not. The impacts from stormwater are no longer tolerated, even for those closer to or within metropolitan areas. There is also a regulating authority (FWS) that is actively monitoring activities and impacts. Furthermore, the areas that are growing faster more recently are those that have the space and the natural features that make them desirable places to be. If the darters are not protected, these areas will not grow.
Coordination With Other Programs. The Etowah HCP has been able to take advantage of the accomplishments of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD)—specifically, the stormwater ordinance for post-construction runoff and the stream buffer requirements. Furthermore, the process of education and communication that developed and continues to occur with the MNGWPD has also been part of this program. A variety of steering, advisory, and technical committees are in place, with members that are participants of other MNGWPD committees.
Improving the Permitting Process. Without this HCP, each project would need to develop its plan meeting the requirements of the ESA, which FWS will have to review and approve. That process could result in requiring an individual developer (or community needing a new reservoir) to create its own HCP, which requires a lot of time and money.
Managing Liability. By participating in this partnership, the developer and community avoid the risk of going at it alone and being solely responsible for the effectiveness of the techniques identified. The monitoring and adaptive management components of the program provide an umbrella of protection.
Protection and Restorative Measures. The Etowah River basin is not in an undeveloped state—if it was, the darters would be plentiful and there would be no need for an HCP. Recognizing this, three priority areas have been developed.
- Priority Area 1:This area contains the most sensitive species and has the most restrictive standard. It is located primarily in the headwater regions, where development is relatively newer when compared to other portions of the watershed. Here, the post-development runoff volumes must be equal to those of a forested condition.
- Priority Area 2: Here, the habitat is not as critical to the survival of the species, and the post-development runoff volume must not exceed that of a site that is 95% forested and 5% impervious. The majority of the Etowah watershed has a Priority Area 2 designation.
- Priority Area 3: This area, similar in size to Priority Area 1, does not currently provide significant habitat to the darters, and it contains areas of higher urbanization and long-established reservoirs. Therefore, Priority Area 3 is not subject to any runoff volume limits.
More effort is placed upon activities in locations that can provide a significant benefit to the darters. In Priority Areas 1 and 2, development nodes have also been established identifying areas where restrictions are significantly relaxed, based on analytical models. These indicate that such exemptions will still result in complying with the requirements for an incidental taking. See www.etowahhcp.org/research/scientific.htm for more details.
The New Discussions and Debates
The following points illustrate how complicated and sophisticated stormwater management has become.
Balancing Nature and Growth
Several questions come up when discussing a project of this nature:
- Will this stop growth?
- How will property rights be affected?
- Why is the darter important?
- Why wasn’t this done earlier?
- Why not just stop development?
In striving to save the darter while still allowing urban development, flexibility has been included in the HCP through the Priority Area designations. With regard to property rights, the intent of the Etowah HCP has been primarily to rely on enforcing existing regulations whenever possible and providing flexibility when addressing new issues that existing regulations do not—no land uses or zoning are restricted. However, the costs to develop the land will increase, which some will see as a restriction on the use of their land.
The Stick and the Carrot
If we ignore the ESA, there will be no growth. If we ignore the Etowah HCP, there will be slower and more expensive growth in this part of Georgia. And, as previously noted, the absence of the Etowah HCP does not preclude FWS from requiring that an HCP be developed—possibly one similar to the Etowah HCP. The provided relief relies not only on the reduced requirements for Priority Areas 2 and 3 but also on a streamlined process that allows development to continue based on the best known, practical, and available techniques to preserve endangered species. The Etowah HCP’s adaptive management provision also provides some protection for developers and communities from hindsight judgment—as long as they do adapt to more effective actions as the monitoring suggests.
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The Tools in the Toolbox
There are seven ordinances and policiesthat provide documentation on how to implement them (see the HCP Web site), and they have been developed with both the technical (scientific) and the implementation (political/economical) aspects in mind. However, one important component seems to get every developer’s attention: How do you infiltrate that much water into these north Georgia soils? Good question. Techniques have been provided, and success stories in other areas of the country have been documented. A design manual and training course for the Etowah HCP is also anticipated. All will be helpful. But the challenge of infiltrating runoff through clay soils will continue to be of discussion. Adaptive management will be an important feature of this HCP, or any other stormwater management program anywhere in the country, as we look to keep growing.
Parting Words
There is a lot of work left to do—but we now have more to work with. There is an upward spiral; here in Georgia you can see it when you compare the rate of progress from the established MNGWPD plans to the new Etowah HCP. More importantly, you can see it beyond these two regions as stormwater managers across the state are trying to find ways to do more—not sweep stormwater under the carpet.
Author's Bio: Dave Briglio, P.E., is principal water resources engineer at MACTEC Inc.’s Kennesaw, GA, office and is responsible for business development and supervising regional and state water resources projects for the company.
July-August 2007
Evolution of Stormwater Management
Sophistication and implementation, part 3
This article is the final installment of a three-part series addressing the current state of stormwater management in the Atlanta area. Part 1 focused on stormwater management issues; part 2 focused on redevelopment and professional certification; and part 3 looks at the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and its implications for stormwater management.
The series focuses on causes, effects, and remedies leading to the establishment and refinement of administrative procedures, professional trust, proactive approaches, and the elimination of obstacles.
Endangered Species Act
Part 1 of this series discussed issues ranging from floodplains to best management practices (BMPs), to stream buffers and field inventories, to professional rights and responsibilities; part 2 addressed challenges associated with innovative applications of accepted methodologies and who has (or wants) the responsibility and authority to deem which application should be allowed—and when. This closing segment highlights the Etowah Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), a watershed program that supports the ESA for the most aquatically diverse watershed in the nation. The HCP shows that progress can be made and success gleaned by identifying and dealing with obstacles.
The Etowah HCP
The Etowah River, located north of the Atlanta metropolitan area, is one of the most biologically diverse river systems in the nation. It contains 76 native species, several of which are found nowhere else in the world. As development has taken place, several species are now gone, including sturgeon and most of the 50 species of mussels that once were found in the watershed. The development activities that have had the greatest impact have been agriculture and water reservoirs, which have led to sedimentation and fragmented habitat. Three fish found in the Etowah River are protected by the ESA: the Etowah darter, the amber darter, and the Cherokee darter. These darters thrive in stream segments with rocky bottoms and clean water.
The ESA was signed into law in 1972 to prohibit the take of species, both directly from activities such as fishing and indirectly from activities that lead to habitat destruction. The ESA allows for individuals, cities, and counties to write HCPs to define how they will provide protection for the endangered species and allowing for some incidental taking. These HCPs are approved by the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), and without them, developers and communities can face long and costly delays while trying to comply with the ESA. The benefit in developing a regional HCP, as has been done for the Etowah River, is that a more efficient process can be employed. These efforts started in 2002 and included local water authorities, members of the development and industry communities, regulatory groups, and the University of Georgia. The result was a group of seven ordinances and policies aimed at minimizing and mitigating the impacts of development, with an emphasis on the three species of darters to be protected:
- Stormwater management
- Stream buffer ordinance
- Erosion and sediment control
- Utility stream crossing policy
- Road stream crossing policy
- Water supply planning
- Monitoring and adaptive management
For a detailed description of those ordinances and policies, see www.etowahhcp.org. The following are capsule descriptions.
Stormwater Management. This ordinance addresses post-development runoff and includes performance standards for water-quality protection, channel protection, and flood protection, with an emphasis on limiting the volume (not the peak rate) of runoff in watersheds that are most important to the survival of the darters.
Stream Buffer Ordinance. Two different ordinances have been developed, one for the more mountainous counties and one for those that are more similar to those of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
Erosion and Sedimentation Control.This is being addressed through a group of six standard operating procedures to help enforce existing erosion and sedimentation control regulations and a grading ordinance that allows for a maximum amount of disturbed area at one point in time and prevents disturbance of steeper slopes.
Utility Stream Crossing Policy. This policy promotes direction boring in place of standard open-trench cutting of utility lines across streams to reduce disturbance and sediment loads that result from such disturbances.
Road Stream Crossing Policy.To avoid disrupting fish migration and creating fragmented populations that can lead to local extinctions of fish, this policy requires bridges for streams that drain more than 20 square miles. It also requires that culverts be oversized, with their inverts set below grade to provide for more natural stream bottoms and no excessive velocities.
Water Supply Planning. This type of planning is intended to avoid permanently fragmenting habitat on large scales. A procedure has been established for evaluating the impacts of potential reservoir locations.
Monitoring and Adaptive Management.The HCP requires that monitoring take place to assess the true effectiveness of the seven policies and ordinances. The information gathered is used to implement an adaptive management process that will allow for ineffective or inefficient program components to be modified.
The Drivers
As with any program of this importance and magnitude, several key issues come to the surface:
- Compliance with the ESA
- Coordination with other established programs
- Improving the permitting process
- Managing the liability associated with a new process
- Identifying and applying protection and restorative measures
The following subsections provide some of the details associated with those issues.
Compliance With the ESA. The Etowah HCP is a voluntary process. Compliance with the ESA is not. The impacts from stormwater are no longer tolerated, even for those closer to or within metropolitan areas. There is also a regulating authority (FWS) that is actively monitoring activities and impacts. Furthermore, the areas that are growing faster more recently are those that have the space and the natural features that make them desirable places to be. If the darters are not protected, these areas will not grow.
Coordination With Other Programs. The Etowah HCP has been able to take advantage of the accomplishments of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD)—specifically, the stormwater ordinance for post-construction runoff and the stream buffer requirements. Furthermore, the process of education and communication that developed and continues to occur with the MNGWPD has also been part of this program. A variety of steering, advisory, and technical committees are in place, with members that are participants of other MNGWPD committees.
Improving the Permitting Process. Without this HCP, each project would need to develop its plan meeting the requirements of the ESA, which FWS will have to review and approve. That process could result in requiring an individual developer (or community needing a new reservoir) to create its own HCP, which requires a lot of time and money.
Managing Liability. By participating in this partnership, the developer and community avoid the risk of going at it alone and being solely responsible for the effectiveness of the techniques identified. The monitoring and adaptive management components of the program provide an umbrella of protection.
Protection and Restorative Measures. The Etowah River basin is not in an undeveloped state—if it was, the darters would be plentiful and there would be no need for an HCP. Recognizing this, three priority areas have been developed.
- Priority Area 1:This area contains the most sensitive species and has the most restrictive standard. It is located primarily in the headwater regions, where development is relatively newer when compared to other portions of the watershed. Here, the post-development runoff volumes must be equal to those of a forested condition.
- Priority Area 2: Here, the habitat is not as critical to the survival of the species, and the post-development runoff volume must not exceed that of a site that is 95% forested and 5% impervious. The majority of the Etowah watershed has a Priority Area 2 designation.
- Priority Area 3: This area, similar in size to Priority Area 1, does not currently provide significant habitat to the darters, and it contains areas of higher urbanization and long-established reservoirs. Therefore, Priority Area 3 is not subject to any runoff volume limits.
More effort is placed upon activities in locations that can provide a significant benefit to the darters. In Priority Areas 1 and 2, development nodes have also been established identifying areas where restrictions are significantly relaxed, based on analytical models. These indicate that such exemptions will still result in complying with the requirements for an incidental taking. See www.etowahhcp.org/research/scientific.htm for more details.
The New Discussions and Debates
The following points illustrate how complicated and sophisticated stormwater management has become.
Balancing Nature and Growth
Several questions come up when discussing a project of this nature:
- Will this stop growth?
- How will property rights be affected?
- Why is the darter important?
- Why wasn’t this done earlier?
- Why not just stop development?
In striving to save the darter while still allowing urban development, flexibility has been included in the HCP through the Priority Area designations. With regard to property rights, the intent of the Etowah HCP has been primarily to rely on enforcing existing regulations whenever possible and providing flexibility when addressing new issues that existing regulations do not—no land uses or zoning are restricted. However, the costs to develop the land will increase, which some will see as a restriction on the use of their land.
The Stick and the Carrot
If we ignore the ESA, there will be no growth. If we ignore the Etowah HCP, there will be slower and more expensive growth in this part of Georgia. And, as previously noted, the absence of the Etowah HCP does not preclude FWS from requiring that an HCP be developed—possibly one similar to the Etowah HCP. The provided relief relies not only on the reduced requirements for Priority Areas 2 and 3 but also on a streamlined process that allows development to continue based on the best known, practical, and available techniques to preserve endangered species. The Etowah HCP’s adaptive management provision also provides some protection for developers and communities from hindsight judgment—as long as they do adapt to more effective actions as the monitoring suggests.
The Tools in the Toolbox
There are seven ordinances and policiesthat provide documentation on how to implement them (see the HCP Web site), and they have been developed with both the technical (scientific) and the implementation (political/economical) aspects in mind. However, one important component seems to get every developer’s attention: How do you infiltrate that much water into these north Georgia soils? Good question. Techniques have been provided, and success stories in other areas of the country have been documented. A design manual and training course for the Etowah HCP is also anticipated. All will be helpful. But the challenge of infiltrating runoff through clay soils will continue to be of discussion. Adaptive management will be an important feature of this HCP, or any other stormwater management program anywhere in the country, as we look to keep growing.
Parting Words
There is a lot of work left to do—but we now have more to work with. There is an upward spiral; here in Georgia you can see it when you compare the rate of progress from the established MNGWPD plans to the new Etowah HCP. More importantly, you can see it beyond these two regions as stormwater managers across the state are trying to find ways to do more—not sweep stormwater under the carpet.