Model stormwater management ordinance set

Template designed to meet EPA Chesapeake Bay Restoration requirements

February 24, 2011 - By John McVey, Journal staff writer

MARTINSBURG - Martinsburg's planning department staff probably will start sifting through a model stormwater management ordinance in the next few months to see how it can be adapted to the city's needs.

"We'll be using it to either totally replace our stormwater management ordinances or enhance our ordinances with provisions from the model," Michael Covell, the city's planning director, said in a telephone interview Wednesday after the final draft of the model stormwater management ordinance was released.

A project of the Region 9 Planning and Development Council, the model ordinance was prepared by Delta Development Group Inc. of Mechanicsburg, Pa. About 25 professionals from the public and private across the tri-county acted as a steering committee for the drafting of the model ordinance. The steering committee has met monthly since last May.

The project was funded with a $30,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant that was administered by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Region 9 matched the grant with $12,000.

Region 9 P&DC encompasses Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties.

Covell described the process as beneficial.

"It gives us something to work with, and hopefully the language will be standard across the Eastern Panhandle," Covell added.

He pointed out that while the ordinance is a model designed for counties and municipalities to adapt to their specific needs, the model was tailored for communities in the Eastern Panhandle.

Jennifer Brockman, director of Jefferson County's Department of Planning and Zoning, agreed that the process of drafting the model ordinance went very well.

"We're excited to have it as a resource," she said later in a telephone interview. "We'll have to do an analysis to see if it would be more effective as a standalone ordinance or used to amend our existing stormwater management ordinances."

The introduction to the model ordinance states: "This Model Stormwater Management Ordinance has been designed to address issues including stormwater control and the Chesapeake Bay Nutrient Reduction requirements in the Potomac River Watershed in West Virginia."

Stormwater runoff is one of the areas targeted by the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Act of 2000 and 2009's presidential executive order to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution from getting into the bay through its tributaries.

The Potomac River is one of the major tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay and the greater, eight-county Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia is in the Potomac River watershed.

The EPA has set dramatically reduced limits on the amount of pollution for West Virginia and the other bay watershed states. The West Virginia DEP has been working on an implementation plan to comply with the new, stringent requirements imposed by the EPA.

Alana C. Hartman, Potomac Basin coordinator with the WVDEP, explained Wednesday that maintaining the status quo on stormwater runoff is how the department's implementation plan is meeting the EPA requirements.

"We don't have to reduce, but we have to hold the line," she said. "If we want to continue to grow, we must find reductions someplace else. We have to capture the runoff, and this is where the model ordinance comes in."

- Staff writer John McVey can be reached at 304-263-3381, ext. 128, or jmcvey@journal-news.net