Thirty-two people, many representing engineering firms or local governments, on Wednesday attended the second in a series of workshops designed to improve future stormwater management.

Called “Growth Readiness Workshops,” the meetings are designed to help local municipalities and the county deal with current stormwater problems, and to prepare for stormwater regulations from the state and federal government that are expected to be more stringent in coming years.

County Mayor Alan Broyles welcomed the group, quipping that he did not yet “understand all that I know” about the subject. Broyles said that he lives along Little Chuckey Creek, which he noted has experienced problems, especially with flooding.

Geologist Stuart Ryman, principal partner of Altamont Environmental Inc., an Asheville, N.C. firm specializing in engineering and hydrogeology, commended those present for being willing to take on a challenging issue.
He said dealing with water issues sometimes “takes some forward thinking and sometimes some courage.”

“You are in a growing area, and that’s expected to continue, because people like to live in nice areas,” geologist Ryman said.
In that way, he said, Greeneville and Greene County are like Asheville and Buncombe County, though obviously more growth has taken place there.

Ryman said projects his company has designed have shown that environmental damage from stormwater can be overcome despite steep slopes, high-intensity rain and highly erodible soils, all of which are just as prevalent on this side of the mountains as they are in North Carolina.

He showed pictures of several projects where runoff from parking lots had been diverted into a series of “rain gardens” that catch water and release it slowly.

One project was for a school. In that instance, the cost of repaving the parking lot, which had been scheduled anyway, was used as the local funding to “match” a federal grant, which provided 75 percent of the total. The pitch of the parking lot was changed to divert water in different directions, he said.

Last week, Ryman said, Buncombe County, which surrounds Asheville, passed its first stormwater ordinance at a “lively meeting,” after much discussion.

“The development community is real concerned,” he said, because its members are not yet sure how the ordinance will work.

In general, he said, the ordinance requires that rain that falls on developed property in the first 24 hours of a typical storm be contained on the property. The law requires “features that detain water,” he said, that promote infiltration of rainwater into the ground rather than diverting it into a stream, and that slow the release of detained water.

Altamont Environmental is working with the Greene County Soil Conservation District, which is seeking to apply for an Environmental Protection Agency grant to clean up Frank Creek in the Tusculum community. Parts of creek are also called College Creek.

Ryman said he and Paul Hayden, soil conservationist with the district, believe that cleaning up College Creek can provide “a benchmark for water quality improvement” for a wider area, because it is so public.

Improvements made along that creek with grant funding could be used as examples, and copied elsewhere in the county, Hayden has said. Participation in the grant cleanup will be voluntary.

54 Impaired Streams Here

Hayden said Frank/College Creek is one of 54 streams in Greene County that are on the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation’s (TDEC’s) list of “impaired” streams, the so-called 303(d) list. Lick Creek is not treated as one stream, but as several “segments,” he said.

Greeneville City Engineer Brad Peters said TDEC has divided the state into five regions and monitors streams every five years. Greene County streams are scheduled to be monitored again in 2011.

A stream is considered “impaired” if it does not meet its designated uses, Peters said, whether they be navigation, supporting wildlife, recreation, or use for water intake.

The state “wants a remediation plan” for every stream listed as impaired, he said. For two years now, the Soil Conservation District has been implementing a plan for Little Chuckey Creek, which was for a time thought to be the only habitat for a species of blind catfish called the “Chuckey Mad Tom.”

Most Greene County streams are impaired because of siltation (dirt and other solids suspended in water) and biological contaminants such as bacteria. In more urban areas, the problem is more likely to be chemicals that find their way into the water.

“The goal is to get the stream’s natural
ecology back,” Peters said.

Biological problems are the easiest to fix, he said, but sedimentation, which usually comes from a variety of sources, is more difficult.

On Frank/College Creek, flooding is a more immediate issue, which will have to be addressed before siltation, Hayden has said.

Dana Ball, a TVA watershed specialist, said sedimentation and coliform bacteria are the problem in both Little Chuckey Creek and Frank/College Creek, as is typical in agricultural areas.

Many Local Officials Attend

Greeneville was represented by Alderman Sarah Webster, City Engineer Peters, Environmentalist Debbie Smith and others, but no members of the Greeneville Planning Commission attended.

Ronda Sawyer, a state planner who works under contract to both the Greeneville and Greene County planning commissions, was present, as was Greene County Planning Coordinator Amy Tweed.

County Commissioner Sam Riley, who is also a longtime member of the county planning commission, represented both groups. County Assessor of Property Ralph Bowers and Building Commissioner Leon Bird attended part of the workshop.

Tusculum Mayor John Foster was present, as was Mark Easterly of the Tusculum Planning Commission, but there were no representatives from Mosheim or Baileyton.

Liz Upchurch of TVA’s Morristown office, commended the group for work it did last month in identifying parts of the county that are likely to experience the most growth by 2020.

In general, said TVA watershed specialist Ball, growth is expected east and south of Greeneville, in Mosheim and along the Baileyton Road, which is expected to become a four-lane highway sometime within the next five years.

One “impediment” to growth in Tusculum that was identified is lack of sewer service, said Ball, who said she did not want to “get into the politics” of that situation.

Ball did not say so, but Greeneville currently has a moratorium on extending sewer service to areas that cannot be annexed, thus excluding the incorporated city of Tusculum. The issue is the subject of a pending lawsuit.

Three Work Groups

The morning workshop was split into three groups, with each group going over a spreadsheet that state planners had earlier used to evaluate local ordinances on stormwater. The small groups focused on either streets and parking, lot design, or natural areas.

The evaluations were themselves keyed to 22 “site planning model development principles,” said Jane Fowler, the workshop facilitator. Fowler is with the Southeast Watershed Forum.
The groups found that some of the model principles did not apply to Greeneville and Greene County, and would be more suitable to more urbanized areas.

The small group dealing with lot design, led by Peters, found that local governments have few if any prohibitions against projects, developments and measures that preserve open space and reduce runoff. However, little is done to encourage preservation of open spaces, he said.

Promoting Open Space

Andy Broyles, a local engineer and developer, said, “We (in Greene County and its municipalities) don’t prohibit low-impact design, but we don’t promote it,” and some thought needs to be given to offering some type of incentives.

Cheryl Summers, who represented both the Cherokee National Forest and the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance, agreed.

Broyles said that many developers see land that is close to a stream as a liability.
He and others noted that, if open spaces are created, then some mechanism must exist or be created to maintain them. In some instances, the mechanism is a property owners’ association, but in Knox County and elsewhere, he said, an additional tax sometimes applies to developments that include open-space or “commons” areas, with the county or municipality taking over maintenance of those areas.

The team recommended that this overall issue be studied. In general, this group felt there was “a lot of room for improvement” locally, in terms of encouraging projects that minimize stormwater impact.

Streets And Parking

The team studying streets and parking, as reported by Sawyer, found that, in the past, people may have been in key positions who were not open to changes designed to reduce stormwater impacts, and that may have changed.

The group recommended looking into requirements for curbs in new developments, because swales often lessen the impact of storms on nearby streams.

‘Natural Areas’

The group working on “natural areas” said they found few existing ordinances dealing with them.

Ball, who reported for this group, said they do not believe that local ordinances can require developers to preserve natural areas at this point, but ordinances may evolve that include protecting water quality and deal better with stormwater through the use of natural areas.

She said considerable education is needed. She also said the group wants to study ways to preserve natural vegetation during construction.

Ball said the group also found nothing in place to encourage tree preservation. She said this group would like to work on rules that would help preserve forest land, require tree-planting, and encourage selective clearing during development.

She said the group decided that, since so many federal regulations deal with wetlands, local planners “need to familiarize ourselves with those.”

The third growth readiness workshop is planned for Nov. 1, though the place and time were not announced. Fowler said the three work groups will begin their work in earnest at that time.