Temple Storm Water Program Surges Forward
The City of Temple Public Works Department hosted the second of a three-part series of meetings on Wednesday, February 21st. Recall from the first meeting that the City of Temple invited TABA and our members to become stakeholders in reviewing Best Management Practices (BMPs) for the City’s program to reduce storm water pollutants that enter streams through storm drain systems. Common pollutants include oil and grease from roadways, pesticides from lawns, sediment from construction sites, and carelessly discarded trash.
The first meeting, which was held in November of last year, was designed to introduce the stakeholders to the process in which the City would develop its storm water management plan and review common best management practices used for everything from educating the public on potential pollutants carried by storm water to managing construction and post-construction storm water run-off.
At the most recent meeting, stakeholders—which included a good representation of builders and developers—got an opportunity to discuss and vote on the best management practices that they believed could most effectively be implemented in Temple.
Each BMP that is included in the City’s program will have a measurable goal and management procedures tied to it, so it is important that we choose the BMPs that are most practical.
As far as the Construction BMPs, it is anticipated that the City’s program will not require anything further of builders than is already required under the TCEQ’s Construction General Permit for this portion of their Storm Water Pollution Prevention Program.
Of the 29 BMPs listed in our information packet, the group voted to recommend 5 items as examples to the City of what is currently common under SWP3 in our area. Among these items were preserving natural vegetation, stabilizing construction entrances, vegetation establishment, riprap soil erosion techniques, and silt fencing. These items could be mentioned as items of guidance when the City completes the ordinance on this issue.
The most significant recommendation in reference to Construction BMPs was that the City hold a series of “Developer’s Stakeholders Meetings” over the next several years to further determine which construction BMPs work well in our area. These meetings will provide opportunities for our builders and developers to be thoroughly educated on each BMP of interest so they can plan to implement these uses further at their jobsites.
Very different from construction BMPs are Post-Construction BMPs. Most of the requirements here will be new, beyond the City’s current detention requirements in Section 8 of their Drainage Criteria and Design Manual.
For this portion, the City is required to “develop, implement, and enforce a program to address storm water runoff from new development and redevelopment projects that disturb one acre of land or more, including projects less than one acre that are part of a larger common plan of development.”
Of the 19 post-construction BMPs that we reviewed—eliminating curb and gutter (but not ribbon curbs), developing vegetated channels (interceptor swales), narrowing residential streets, providing alternative turnarounds, and urban forestry seemed like areas that the stakeholders might recommend. Again, the future series of “Developer Stakeholder Meetings” will provide opportunities for thorough review and discussion of each of these BMPs. Our guiding principle was that man-made controls are often most expensive and difficult to maintain.
If you would like to review the ballot that the stakeholders voted on in our recent meeting, we’ll have one at the TABA office that you are welcome to come in and take a look at.
