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Stormwater Rules Morphing

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By MIKE SALINERO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 29, 2007

In an effort to clean up pollution that washes off new subdivisions and shopping centers, state regulators are writing new stormwater treatment regulations that could change the face of development in Florida.

More than 400 rivers, lakes and bays across the state are considered too polluted to serve the needs of man and wildlife. Hard surfaces such as sidewalks, roads and rooftops are like expressways that rush pollutants from developed areas to water bodies with little, if any, treatment.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection wants to break that connection. The agency is developing rules that would require the amount of pollutants, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, that flow off a newly built site to be no more than what came off the raw land.

'There's a recognition that it's time we evolve our stormwater rules and move from secondary to advanced treatment, or even reclaiming the stormwater,' said Eric Livingston, DEP's chief of the Bureau of Watershed Management.

Livingston said the new rule probably won't be in place until June 2009, but it's already causing anxiety in building circles. With the home-building industry in an ever-deepening slump, the last thing builders say they need are additional costs to treat stormwater.

But the state's vision for reducing pollutants might save builders money. Instead of building expensive treatment systems, developers could use 'green' development techniques to meet the new pollution requirements. Rooftops could be covered with vegetation instead of shingles, grassy berms and ditches could replace curbs and underground pipes, and stormwater would be reused for irrigation.

'These are not physical things you build, but how you do your development so that you reduce the generation of runoff in the first place and you reduce the introduction of nutrients,' Livingston said.

State Is Ahead Of The Curve

In the 1980s, Florida became the first state in the country to adopt mandatory stormwater treatment rules for new developments. That's the reason subdivisions across the state have retention ponds that often double as lakes.

The purpose of the ponds is two-fold: to reduce flooding by holding back the water, then releasing it slowly, and to allow pollutants to settle out of the water.

Scientists had hoped the ponds would remove 80 percent of the nutrient pollution in the retained water. In reality, the ponds remove about 30 percent of the nitrogen and 60 percent of the phosphorus. These two nutrients, produced by fertilizers, petroleum products and coal-fired power plants, cause algae blooms that eat up life-giving oxygen in the water.

'Our existing best management practices are not doing the job they were expected to do with stormwater,' said Elie Araj, president of Applied Sciences Consulting, a Tampa-area engineering firm. 'So how are we as a county or city to achieve our cutbacks in nitrogen and phosphorus when ... we're not even holding the line?'

The state adopted 80 percent nutrient reduction as a broad policy goal in the late 1990s. At about the same time, the federal government began pushing states to begin the long-delayed cleanup of polluted rivers, lakes and bays.

For decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had concentrated on reducing discharges to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act. But with that source of pollution largely abated, the EPA began to focus on stormwater in 1990.

In a recent talk with the American Public Works Association, EPA assistant water administrator Benjamin Grumbles said he wants to change how America thinks about stormwater. Americans, Grumbles said, should see stormwater 'as a resource, not a waste stream, and to ensure it repairs, rather than impairs, watersheds.'

The state DEP has been collecting data on runoff for 10 years to devise a method of deducing how much nutrient pollution runs off a site, before and after development. Livingston said that work is largely done and the new regulations will probably be adopted by June 2009.

Going 'Green'

To achieve the pollution reductions, the state and the EPA want developers to look to low-impact development and other 'green infrastructure.' The idea is to reduce the hard surfaces that prevent water from infiltrating the ground where it can be cleaned naturally.

Examples of how this is done include green roofs, where the rooftop is covered with dirt and plants; pervious concrete, which allows water to seep through roads and parking lots; and reuse of stormwater for irrigation.

Livingston would also like to see cities and counties change land-use rules to end requirements that subdivisions have concrete sidewalks, curbs and gutters, and 50-foot-wide streets. Instead, drainage would be handled with grassy berms and ditches, mulch would be used instead of concrete for walkways, and smaller streets would be constructed with pervious concrete.

Other potential changes: Incentives to get developers to stop clearing native trees and vegetation off a development site, and clustering homes to preserve shared green space.

Few Florida counties have low-impact development requirements. Peter Aluotto, Hillsborough County's director of Planning and Growth Management, said his department is interested in the new development practices but is nowhere near developing rules that could be presented to the county commission.

Sarasota County has written low-impact development rules, but they are not in effect. County Commissioner Jon Thaxton said that won't happen until the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which issues stormwater permits, gives credits to developers for pollution reductions achieved by the low-impact developments. That would save builders from having to build larger retention ponds or other expensive treatment structures.

'Not only are we not rewarding people for returning to a more natural way of treating stormwater,' Thaxton said, 'we actually reward them for doing the wrong thing.'

Livingston said Friday that the directors of the state's five water management districts have agreed in principle to allow low-impact development count toward the new pollution-reduction requirements.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com.

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