Published: June 17, 2008 04:25 pm      

City planners still working to handle stormwater issues

With growth comes responsibility, and in some cases, that responsibility is mandated by the state.

Because the city of Crossville has crossed the threshold of 10,000 population, a number of new regulations fall on the city for control of stormwater and the institution of these new rules is enforced by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. The required ordinances have been passed by the city but one policy that still must be approved is one on stormwater runoff control and detention.

The city held a public hearing on the detention policy prior to their regular June meeting but it mainly included city planning coordinator Kevin Dean explaining briefly to the council the status of the policy. Dean told the council that the group working on the policy was backing away from the very stringent requirements originally discussed in the policy and they wanted additional information to make a decision before they bring a recommendation back to the council.

Stormwater detention requires that developers and contractors control water runoff from projects when the natural land is disturbed or covered with paving or construction so that water runs off instead of being absorbed by the earth. When natural surface is replaced by impervious surfaces, the percentage of surface area altered is the key to the requirement for detention ponds or other methods to slow the run off from heavy rains.

As the city works on its municipal separate sewer system (MS4) requirements, they had a deadline of July 1 to approve a post construction policy. The city has requested a 45 day extension of that deadline because of the resignation of the city engineer and plans to rethink the policy.

According to the letter to the state requesting the waiver, in addition to the loss of the city's engineer contention over the maximum cubic feet per second leaving a site was a concern. The review committee has decided to hire a panel of engineers to conduct a study so the policy can be based on data from the plateau. The letter says that the extension will allow a more effective program to be administered by the city.

Crossville city attorney Ken Chadwell reported to the council that he was working on nuisance complaints and a directive from the council to put more teeth into actions to correct the problems property owners refuse to correct. Chadwell said he was working to create a precedent in filing legal action to recover expenses for city work against property including the placement of a lien that can be placed as a tax bill. Because the charges are placed against the property like city property taxes, if the bills are not paid, the city can take action to force the sale of the property to collect the money due.

Chadwell said there was no alternative to the action taken against the property owners as they had continuously refused to respond to the city's requests to take care of their property. Once the city has done the work to correct problems on the property they can then take the legal action necessary to collect the debt.

Fines assessed by the city court at a maximum of $50 a day have little effect and while there are legal rights, they do not have the same level of teeth that placing a lien against the property does. Chadwell said that he and the city codes enforcement department were working closely together to be able to correct problems and they would take them one at a time until they were all addressed.

Crossville Mayor J.H. Graham received an award for his completion of the elected officials academy. The training is part of the comprehensive municipal training provided by the University of Tennessee's Municipal Technical Advisory Service and is designed to give municipal officials an overview of the varied aspects of their role as a municipal leader.

Topics covered in the training included structure of municipal government, municipal charters, codes and open records as well as finance, economic development, ethics and the open meeting law.

The award was presented by MTAS general consultant Warren Nevad who has worked with the city for the last several years. Nevad explained he works with some 35 cites in the Cumberland Plateau and Sequatchie Valley region.