Watershed costs | Property owners may face significant expenses to comply with changing regulatory requirements
Sheff is a senior vice president and Henderson a water resources specialist at Woodard & Curran
One of the environmental impacts of property development and maintenance is stormwater pollution. On undeveloped properties, rain and snow filter into the ground. On developed property, impervious surfaces, such as parking lots, sidewalks and roofs, force precipitation into drains and, from there, into nearby streams. In highly developed locations, this can lead to degradation of nearby water bodies, forcing out wildlife, fish and compromising recreational opportunities.
In Maine, there are 30-plus “urban impaired streams,” a designation applied by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection when a stream fails to meet water quality standards as a result of non-point source pollution. Research has found that urban watersheds become impaired when impervious cover reaches 8% to 12% or more of the watershed’s area. At these percentages, many watersheds in Maine are at risk of becoming urban impaired streams. That, in turn, raises questions about future development, as well as how to mitigate the effects of existing development.
Learning from Long Creek
On Jan. 21, the Maine chapter of the Society for Marketing Professional Services sponsored a panel discussion on balancing watershed management with land development. The discussion focused on federal Clean Water Act compliance and properties located within the urban impaired Long Creek watershed in South Portland.
In late 2008, the Long Creek watershed, which extends into South Portland, Portland, Scarborough and Westbrook, became one of very few places in the country subject to a new focus from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Owners of impervious surfaces will, as a result, be required to hold Clean Water Act permits.
In 2009, the EPA and DEP adopted the Long Creek Watershed Management Plan to guide the rehabilitation of the watershed, which could be a bellwether for the direction urban stormwater regulation will take in the coming years.
To implement the plan, DEP developed general permit and individual permit options for landowners. Regulated property owners can now choose to sign on under the general permit, or attempt to meet the permit requirements on their own. In either case, they will have to make significant financial investments to reduce polluted stormwater runoff within the watershed.
Under the general permit, landowners would pay approximately $3,000 per impervious acre per year for 10 years, which would fund implementation of the watershed management plan. Individuals attempting to meet the requirements on their own might have to spend anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 for each impervious acre to meet state obligations. The fee for general permit compliance appears to be less expensive than the individual permit over the first permit cycle, but permit compliance will very likely extend into the future and both permit options represent new financial commitments.
What does this mean for you?
If you obtained a permit that met stormwater rules at the date it was issued, you still may be subject to additional federal regulatory requirements if you own property in an urban impaired watershed. The Clean Water Act does not exempt existing discharges. Property owners and developers should review their holdings and assess their locations relative to Maine’s urban impaired watersheds. For properties within these watersheds, a water quality compliance assessment is probably warranted. Get to know the regulatory requirements and determine whether there are small cost-effective measures you can implement now to reduce stormwater effects.
At the SMPS event, Andy Fisk, director of the Bureau of Land and Water Quality, said proactive watershed restoration planning is probably the best method to improve water quality over the long term in urban water bodies. He said this burden will require regional planning and perhaps a reconfiguration of how land-use permits are issued. Recent National Academy of Sciences reports indicate that regulatory agencies must reestablish permit requirements on a watershed basis to ensure restoration and to share the cost equitably.
In the short term, property owners should be aware of where their holdings are, in the context of their watersheds, and be prepared for an increasing level of scrutiny.
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