STORMWATER REGULATIONS BOARD
DECEMBER 13, 2004
MINUTES
Attendees: Mary (Cissy) May
Harry Tate
Ken DeFoor
Bill Mc Donald
Ray Adkins
Naveed Minhas
Steve McKinley
Mike McMahan
Bill Payne
Mounir Minkara
Clyde Sawyer
Mitch Underwood
Carolyn Fisher
Milton Jackson
Rebecca Robinson
Douglass Stein
(The following Stormwater Board members were absent)
Jim Moegling
Jim Hoff
Some of the members were late arriving at the meeting. However, there was a quorum.
II. Minutes Approval:
November 18, 2004 Minutes approved.
Ray Adkins: Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is after three o’clock and I’ll call our December meeting of the Stormwater Board to order. Everyone received the minutes or did not receive the minutes because they were not published for our November meeting. But we received our minutes for our October meeting. May I move that we approve our October meeting minutes?
Cissy May: I think we have the minutes for the November 8th meeting. It was the second meeting in November, the 18th, that we did not have.
Ray Adkins: Okay. Did I look at it wrong? I guess I did. Okay. Change that to do I hear a motion that we approve our November 8th minutes?
Milton Jackson: November meeting as read.
Ray Adkins: Do I hear a second?
Cissy May: Second.
Ray Adkins: All in favor, aye?
Ayes were heard on the tape
Ray Adkins: All opposed aye?
No ayes were heard on the tape
Ray Adkins: Motion carries. And we did not have our November 18th meeting minutes available and due to poor audio on the recorder, so do I hear a motion that we move on without approving the minutes?
So moved and seconded
Ray Adkins: All favor say aye.
Ayes heard on tape.
Ray Adkins: All opposed likewise?
No ayes heard on tape
Ray Adkins: I will now turn the meeting over to Mr. Bill Payne and he will guide us through the rest of the agenda.
Bill Payne: Alright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me adjust these lights for just a second. Well, I’ll do that in just a second when we get to that part when we get to the screen.
III. NPDES Permit Status Update.
a. Introduction of Mounir Minkara, Water Quality Manager
Bill Payne: I would like to take a moment to update the Board on the status of the Permit. But before I do that, I would like to introduce to you Mr. Mounir Minkara. His name is Mo and he is the new Water Quality Manager. That is a position that I know we have talked about in some past meetings that is a position that was created this year to try to ease some of the burden with one person weather like we had last week when we had so much rain had a tendency to pull me away from focusing on the Permit. Now, by having a Water Quality Manager, Mo is able to be focused on the Permit 100% of the time regardless of weather or other conditions like that. Mo has a Ph. D. from LSU in Environmental Science and Engineering Science and he spent the last 2 ½ years with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and has now come to work for us. In the past, we have worked with Mo on the Permit when he was with TDEC and now he is working for us now. In the past, he has worked with us very well and now he is working with us much closer. Mo, do you have any comments?
Mounir Minkara: I’m glad I am here. I will do my best just to get the City in compliance with the NPDES Permit.
b. Overview of Permit Status
Bill Payne: Thank you, Mo. At this time I would like to give an overview of the Permit and our objectives and our goals with this. I know we have spent the last several meetings talking about the enforcement protocol and we have worked very hard and we do appreciate the Board’s diligence in working on that issue. Now that we have adopted that measure and we are able to move ahead, we wanted to re-focus on the overall larger program. So we are going to spend today’s meeting going over some information about the Permit in general and review that information with the Board members. This will help us to lay some groundwork and some background for the next few months. And at the end, one of the items that we have to pass out is a long-term strategy of topics that we have. That way everybody knows where we are headed, the information is that we are trying to present and the direction we are going in. Some of the roles and responsibilities of the Board (we will talk about these in more detail at the next meeting as well) include doing some reviews and making some recommendations and we feel like it is important for the Board to make sure that you have the best understanding that you can of the existing program and what is required in order to be able to make those recommendations and do those reviews. To start with we have talked in the past about the Permit status of the NPDES Permit. There are one hundred fifty-one (151) line items in that Permit. Ninety-three (93) of those are now complete which is an increase from the last time that we gave you an update in October. Forty-three (43) of those measures are on-going activities. Things where we are doing sampling, where we are doing monitoring, where we are doing inspections and other various things like doing maintenance on the drainage system. These forty-three (43) items must be repeated annually. The nine-three (93) represents one-time things that were needed to get the program started or get different components implemented. There are eleven (11) of the measures that are considered in progress. They are all one-time measures that have not yet been completed. Four (4) of those measures are what we consider to be future measures because they rely on something that is currently in progress that we are working on now that has to be completed before we can do those components. And we will talk about those more as we go through this. The next two items that we have that are due for completion and submittal to the Sate of Tennessee at the end of this month, the Pesticide, Herbicide, Fertilizer Municipal Guidance Manual is complete at the end of this month and Gene Hyde, the Urban Forester, has been working on that and Mounir has been with us now a couple of weeks and he has already been working with Gene Hyde in reviewing that document to make sure that it is complete and ready for submittal. Then, the second requirement that is due is not due until March; the end of March, 2005 and that is for a pilot of a master plan for what is considered to be the priority watershed. We will talk about that some more as we move through. Primarily, we want to spend some time today talking about the next item which is item 3-c which is Demonstration of the As-Found and the Inventory Programs.
c. Demonstration of As-Found and Inventory Programs
Bill Payne: And I will adjust the lights a little bit. What you see on the screen and on the monitors in front of you is the Dobbs Branch Watershed. Under the Permit requirements, we are required to do an inventory of the drainage system. That inventory consists of locating all of the structures and all of the conveyances, basically catch basins, manholes, end walls, headwalls, just the ends of pipes as well as all open ditches, the size of pipes. We also are required to do some things on the physical description. What is the size? What type of material? How is it constructed? What is it constructed from? We are also required to make observations on the structural integrity, whether or not there are any obstructions, whether or not repairs and maintenance need to be performed, whether or not there is any evidence of any illicit discharges, including abnormal color, abnormal odor that may be present in any flow that is there in the conveyance. We have divided the effort into two components. One of those is the As-Found Program which is being performed by a joint venture of two local engineering firms, the firms of Arcadis, Geraghty & Miller and Consolidated Technologies, Inc. Those two firms have come together to function as a single entity and are working as a joint-venture to do all the work of helping us to establish what information was necessary, building computer data bases, which you see an example of here on this screen as well as putting field crews in the watershed to actually go out and collect this information. So, that is one component of it. That is an expensive process that is also what we consider to be our critical path to compliance. This is an element that will not be completed until September 30, 2008. This is the deadline that we have submitted to TDEC because of the fact that this is a very intensive process to be able to collect all this information on a City-wide basis. The crews that are out in the field will be able to determine connectivity – complete connectivity of all structures, all open channels, all pipes, and all ditches within the City, within whatever area that they are given to work on. Phase I was Dobbs Branch which you can see based on the circles that you see on the screen there. There are some red, there are some yellow, some green. Those represent different various types of structures, whether catch basins, whether just intersections of pipes and ditches. Phase II is South and West, which would be down and to the left on the screen in front of you is collecting information inside the Chattanooga Creek Watershed. Chattanooga Creek is actually second on our priority list and the reason why it is Phase II isbecause we have our crews working on an inventory process. That is the second component of this that I spoke of a moment ago. Whenever we do the work on the inventory, we are doing, some more basic parts of the work. We are not doing as much detail work in the beginning because we have to collect this information, some of this basic information faster than 2008. So we have five (5) of our field crews plus maintenance crews and some office GIS personnel that are doing work to try to collect basic information of what is the type of structure? What is the size of the pipe? How is everything connected together? And whether or not the system needs any maintenance on it. By doing that information that way we are able to collect this basic information on the other parts of the City and that is the red that you see that is on the right hand side of the screen. That is the inventory project. We have two deadlines. The deadline that we have given to TDEC is December 31, 2005 for completing a connectivity map of the entire City. Internally, we have placed a deadline on ourselves of August 1, 2005. We are working towards that deadline and moving along very well. One of the other main differences is the number of attributes. This will help you tell the difference I’ll pass around three 11 X 17 sheets. This is what the As-Found crews are out looking for. They are looking for the information that you see on these sheets. And by comparison our crews are looking for information that is contained on a single 8 ½ X 11 sheet of paper. So there’s a large amount of information that is being looked at over all and I’ll pass these around so that everybody can just get an opportunity to see them. One of the other things that the As-Found crews are doing is taking readings GPS (Global Positioning Sattelite) on each of the structures while they are at that location. They are actually able to determine the invert elevation within about a centimeter of accuracy, so that we actually will be able to use this information for modeling and other purposes without having to send additional crews out to try to collect this information. Our crews are not taking any elevation information. They essentially have a hand-held unit which has a – map where they can just place points. Those are going to be accurate within about ten feet or so. But we also are not collecting any elevation information. Mitch, is this an area in Dobbs Branch?
Mitch Underwood: Yes.
Bill Payne: Okay. We will give that just a second to come up. We have various types of information and structures that are shown on there. You can see from the color scheme that is in there, there are many different types of structures from curb inlets, check dams, catch basins, headwalls, manholes. We even have places where it is just the intersection of two pipes because there is no structure that has actually been built there. That exists in a lot of places. That is not the standard we would build if we were building it today, but it does exist out there, so we had to build a lot of flexibility into the system to be able to get this information and use it. Mitch, can you select one of the structures just to show them the types of information that we have? You can tell from looking at this, this is a list that you see on the screens, a very long list that provides a lot of different information. Each structure has a facility ID which we’ve based on tax map numbers. It tells you the type of structure. In this case it is a catch basin. There is information on the invert elevations, whether or not they have noted any infiltration, any obstructions, whether or not it is clean, if there is an obstruction, what type of obstruction is it? They have also indicated the date to which they have found this information. That is called the condition date. In this case, this matches the date collected in the source date and as this information changes and we go through time, you will begin to see some things that will change with this in respect to the condition date being updated. And the date that is in those fields that are based on the condition will also be updated as we do repairs, as we do maintenance, then we will also be able to update those and indicate that they are clean so that we know when we last worked on that structure. It also tells you what the ground surrounding it is. In this case it is asphalt. It tells you the invert elevation. It also tells you the elevation of the top of the ground as well. So there is a lot of information that is collected and contained in As-Found project. One of the other things we have isthis board along the back. It is real difficult to see from where we are and if everybody will just move to the back, I want to talk some about this board. This is what we use for our inventory process and while I’m doing that, I’m going to ask Mitch to go ahead and pull up some information on the inventory process so that we are able to come back to the monitors and we will be able to talk about that information that has been collected there. This is what we affectionately call our “War Map”. Mr. Adkins referred to it earlier as a “situation map”. That is a very appropriate term. What you will see on this map is the status of the Inventory effort. We are collecting information by tax grid. Each grid has a colored square to indicate which field crew collected the information. The colored pins indicate which step in the process each grid is in. Yellow pins mean the field crew is collecting data. Red pins mean the initial field work is complete and the GIS work has begun. Red pins with white ends mean more field work is needed to complete the connectivity between tax grids. Green pins mean all work is complete. Eventually the entire map will be green and we will be done. (Some Questions and Comments made by the Board members were not audible on the tape.)
Bill Payne: This is our biggest activity in terms of dollars, time, manpower and all those associated resources. I’m also going to reference it back to the As-Found back to the inventory where I’m going to show you some of the functionality, some of the tools that represent other components.
(At this point Bill asked for questions)
Milton Jackson: Does that cover all the WPA sites?
Bill Payne: Yes. And we cover everything from “Waters of the State” to natural channels, improved channels as well as any pipe enclosed sections.
Douglass Stein: You have got all this information catalogued. What does that do? And how are you going to use it?
Bill Payne: Basically, we will use it for many different things. There’s a software program called CityWorks. This information is graphically stored in the computer system, the GIS system, CityWorks also attaches itself to these same structures when we write a work order. Right now, every time we have to write a work order, we have to go out and write up what it is we want done, actually hand draw and sketch out information on a GIS map of driveways, houses and streets, that sort of thing. We have to go out and add the drainage system by hand. With this information and CityWorks being attached to it, we will be able to zoom in, find the area and say this is an existing system, here’s where the system needs to go and whenever the crew goes out it will all be attached and we will have the history. The system will be available electronically by structure, by pipe.
Douglass Stein: Why is this so high on the EPA’s list where the City is in violation?
Bill Payne: Part of the reason why this is so high on their list is because what the Permit is for; the Permit is for the drainage system, specifically portions where it enters into “Waters of the State”. So any systems that touch “Waters of the State” is where we are primarily responsible for controlling pollution in that area. Part of the reason why this is so important is because the City to this point was looking at overall water quality in those areas. The other way this helps is in terms of field screening, illicit discharges or responding to spills. With this software, you can actually pick a structure and trace this downstream. You can also say, “I found something at this point. Tell me everything that is upstream. That is one of the reasons why Dobbs Branch was selected first. That section of the Interstate over the Ridge Cut is high in terms of traffic accidents, diesel spills from transportation related releases. Trying to catch something in that area – we know that if you can get to this point in a certain amount of time you can catch it. The problem is we don’t know all the places to catch the spill. The Fire Department has been asking us for this for quite a while. This is crucial in terms of their first response with any kind of spill because if the guys on the engine have these maps, they can pull up and they can go out there before we even have the chance to start to respond.
Milton Jackson: Actually, from the ground water standpoint when we get to low an area, then they have the ground water seeping through the whole area.
Bill Payne: That’s right.
Bill McDonald: What Bill was talking about in terms of a spill response is if you have something spill right now, somebody’s got to respond in the next thirty minutes. So you are looking at where it is going to go from there. And that is what he is talking about. Once it gets into the ground, I guess it’s TDEC that has the responsibility. We don’t have any responsibility for underground water. It’s all surface.
Bill Payne: At this point, the locations like you are describing are areas where it actually becomes a stream at that point and becomes “Waters of the State”. The primary purpose of an MS4 or municipal separate storm sewer system is primarily to prevent pollution before it comes into contact with that “Waters of the State”…so once we get to a point where the ground water gets in contact, we still respond to this types of issue. We don’t ignore it because it is “Waters of the State”.
Bill McDonald: From the maintenance standpoint, we don’t even have a record so we don’t have any way of having a regular maintenance program like you said “We’re going to go clean out this culvert or this stream or drainage ditch or whatever except for the WPA ditches. We have a regular program for doing that. The others pretty much are responses to complaints or things that we just happen to know about. Here, we will know where they all are. We don’t even know where they all are. Particularly the older part of town, no plans, no maps. And a lot of places where we have annexed them in with no plans, no anything, maps that indicate where any of the structures were, what type of structure, or where they are running to. And those things are all important.
Milton Jackson: Mentioned the many ditches and WPA’s in Alton Park and throughout Chattanooga. He mentioned some that were made by running water.
Bill Payne: And another thing, also, there is a component of the Permit that talks about doing routine and preventive maintenance on drainage structures. And so if it is one of those things I think we talked about earlier, the Permit itself is a water quality program with and a small drainage component. For a number of years in Chattanooga, the program has been a large drainage program with a small water quality component. The last couple of years we have been trying to get that back on a more even keel in terms of where it should be according the priority established in the Permit.
Bill Payne: If there are no more questions, I’m sure some will come up as I go over some of these others and show the functionality of the software.
Bill Payne: Let’s see, Mitch. Can you go ahead and pull up an Inventory attribute list? This will give you an idea of comparison. You see how short this list is? This is actually for an earthen ditch. Also, identify one of the structures. I think what we had before was a catch basin. That way, you can get a comparison. You can see that there is a lot of this information that is here because a lot of the attributes are similar in terms of the way the data base has been constructed. But you can see there are a lot of blank spaces. There are also a lot of zeroes. There is a lot of “nones” in there. Right here in the center where it says obstruction and maintenance, those are some of the conditions that we are checking for, that our crews are looking for. But, in terms of a lot of the other information, invert elevations, top of structure, information on the type of ground whether it is asphalt or concrete or just grassy area that is around the structures, we are not collecting that information now as we were talking about with the As-Found. But what this information allows us to track a few things and actually get some work done now. Because, as we are able to send our crews in, there are times when they come across catch basins or pipes or other parts of the drainage system that are so silted up that they can’t see where the end of the pipe is or they can’t see down inside the structure because there is so much sediment that it collected over time in those areas. And they can actually collect whether or not there is an obstruction, how much it is obstructed, whether it is 1 to 25%, 26 to 50%, 51 to 75%, or 76 to 100%. And those that have that highest amount; that 76 to 100 are ones that they need to be cleaned before the crews can actually completely determine the connectivity and be able to have all this make sense together. That is another way this help. There may not be anything that is needed immediately, but, as soon as this process is over, we are immediately going to have a database of here are all the structures that need some type of maintenance on it. We will allow for prioritizing and rank the work for the crews to be able to go out and to be able to take place. And then, I already mentioned about the CityWorks. A lot of this information will also be connected back to the CityWorks data as well.
d. Review of Major Permit Requirements
Bill Payne: Now we will review some of the other Permit areas. There are sections in the Permit on new and redevelopment discharge controls. We are required to have a plans review function. We have talked about that in the past that we have a plans review. In the past, there was one person who did Stormwater and Sanitary Sewer both. That has now become two (2) people. One does primarily Stormwater and the other person provides a backup on that so we constantly have someone that is there. They are reviewing for things on the drainage system, both on the property as well as on surrounding property, any detention that may be required as well as the Water Quality components, terms like “first flush” and trying to capture some of these pollutants that come off when it rains. They are monitoring for those.
There are also components in there for Master Planning which is one of the elements I mentioned earlier that the first of those basins is due in March. The Permit also covers sections on roadways which include de-icing practices. One of the things that the City has done – we have gone from only using salt or a salt/sand mix to using a brine solution which has salt dissolved into it. One of the things that does is limit the amount of salt that gets applied on the roads because everything applied on the roads, ultimately, whenever the ice melts, the snow melts, all that salt is going to run into the drainage system. That is going to change the characteristics of the water. It is going to have impacts on Water Quality. The brine allows us to use less salt and make sure we get it where we want it. You don’t have to use as much quantity of actual salt in order to be able to achieve the same effects. That is an improvement the City made. The roadway system also covers street sweeping. Not necessarily something that you might think of, but, actually it is there to collect floatables such as cups and cigarette butts and leaves and any sediment that may collect along gutter lines. And this is also the section in there on routine preventative maintenance of the catch basins and other components of the drainage system.
There are also sections in the Permit on flood control projects including retrofitting existing facilities and making sure that we have procedures in place to incorporate Water Quality components in any new projects that are done and those can be anything from large-scale detention ponds to levees, or pump stations.
Discharge from solid waste facilities is also covered by the Permit. That includes sections on City owned landfills whether they are open or closed. 36th Street Landfill is a closed facility that the City owns and we are required to do quarterly monitoring on that facility. It includes any transfer stations as well as the three refuse collection centers that the City owns and operates on North Access Road, West 52nd Street and Airport Road. We have to provide guidance materials for those facilities. We were instrumental and took the lead in writing the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans for the three residential refuse collections centers. We are also required in there to have memorandums of understanding with other City operations and other City agencies.
Pesticides, Herbicides and fertilizers also has its own section in the Permit. Like many other sections in the Permit, it also has sections for Public Education. We are also required to provide guidance manuals and information on alternative methods of doing landscaping that require fewer of those chemicals (pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer-type chemicals). We are encouraged to look into non-chemical ways of managing and controlling pests. We are also reviewing and implementing guidance materials for municipal applications of pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer. That was what I mentioned earlier. The Urban Forestry staff has been working on a draft of that for us and Mo is in the process of reviewing that for completion.
Mitch, can you go to the Jordan Drive section? There is also a requirement for a monitoring program in order to take samples and to do monitoring on those sections. The location that we use is where that we have some integrated monitoring sampling equipment which is at Jordan Drive there at Shallowford Road and when Mitch pulls that up, we’ll show you a little bit of the functionality of what the system is able to do. Down at the very bottom center of your screen is the location where the sampler is. Mitch, can you put your cursor on that spot? That was just for reference. Now, can you highlight that and select all of everything that upstream from that point? One of the things that the computer system allows us to do is to select different components of this and be able to determine everything that is upstream from that point and Mitch is going to pull that up and show you. This section actually drains all the way from Hamilton Place Mall. It is a combined residential and commercial section that drains through this area. One of the things that we’re able to do, we’re taking samples for pesticide, herbicides and fertilizers on a two (2) samples twice a year so that we can that and determine trends. We can also figure out how to target programs to the watershed that is upstream to determine what types of measures are necessary, what types of education do we need to aim at these particular groups. Do we think it is commercial landscaping? Do we think our problem is residential? Over application may be the culprit in those cases and so that is ultimately what we will be able to come with from there.
Illicit discharges is another section in the permit. We are required to implement a program including having an ordinance in place, doing inspection and identification of those discharges, as well as doing enforcement and any associated correction in getting those corrected. Field screening is a dry weather inspection. We are required to monitor, known outfalls to “Waters of the State”. There are 219 outfalls that are known at this point. We will be identifying more as we get the complete inventory. We are required to field screen all do all outfalls once every two years. So that is about 110 every year. We have to visit each site twice within a twenty-four (24) hour period. We have to track the information on GIS which we are able to do already. We will be able to associate that to this information as well as from stream-walking and wet weather inspections. Mitch, can you use the tracing tool to highlight for example one of the catch basins or one of the structures and be able to trace what is upstream from that point?
Mitch Underwood: Well the Inventoryhas not all been snapped
Bill Payne: That is fine. Let’s do that on Dobbs Branch.
(At this point, the tape ran out)
Bill Payne: While he is moving back to the Dobbs Branch section, spill response which we talked about in the back is also a section where we are required to coordinate with the Fire Department providing them with the information that we have on the drainage system so that they can assist with spill response. Industrial inspections and monitoring are also part of that, including making sure that once the spill occurs that we address with the person involved what are the causes and what can be done to prevent those future spills. And now that he has found some sections here in Dobbs Branch, we’ll show you those two tools. There is one that will allow us to be able to identify a point and be able to show all of the upstream points from that location as well as another one where we can actually trace from any point and go downstream.
Mitch Underwood: Which one you want? Downstream?
Bill Payne: We will go ahead and show both now so which ever one you want to do first is fine.
Mitch Underwood: Downstream first.
Bill Payne: Okay.
Bill Payne: Just trace it with your cursor. The green square that you see kind of up near the top? That is the section where he is tracing from. The purple represents the system itself and then the red that you see which starts at that green square that is up at the top and shows it coming down. That shows you the downstream so that at that point you would know if something had gotten in at the point where that green is where you would need to go. So there is not any question about – “Where do we need to position our crews? Where do we need to put containment equipment? Where do we need to send the cleanup contractor?” Even though the City may not be the one actually out there doing this work, we are providing technical guidance and assistance to whoever the responsible party is and it also helps us to know that everything that is affected has been cleaned as well. Now he is showing the upstream trace again from the same point. Just so you all will know, we don’t spend as much time in our offices waiting on it to regenerate. It is working on a little different computer from the computers we have; we don’t spend nearly as much time having to wait on it to regenerate.
Mitch Underwood: It is only selecting a very small section.
Bill Payne: That’s alright. I’ll tell you what. Right there on Holtzclaw, can you do one of those that is right there on Holtzclaw? Yes, there we go. That shows you everything that is connected to that point. So it shows you everything that is part of that drainage system. That is the other tool that this really is going to improve our ability because at this point, a lot of it has been cruising the field. They find something, they have to go and walk it to be able to find where those sources are coming from. So, this will greatly increase the productivity.
There are just a couple of other sections in the Permit. One is related to construction site runoff and erosion sediment control plans. The permitting that is associated with that section and then the enforcement which is what we have spent the last few months dealing with the enforcement protocol.
Finally, there is a section on wet weather monitoring which includes seasonal loadings for all the outfalls. Average concentrations for an average storm event. Take doing monitoring both anything that is ambient to the drainage system itself as well as biological monitoring. And then one of the other long-term items that is in the Permit requires three (3) years worth of data to be collected on watershed characterization and that is the final underneath the wet weather monitoring.
That is an overview of the Permit and we have gone over some of this information in the past. It has been a while since we talked about some of these issues and we’ll be talking about some of the others in more detail in future meetings.
But, just to bring everybody back to the forefront, how much information is in the Permit, what kind of what the scope of it is and at this point that was all the information I had on that. I’ll be glad to answer any additional questions that anyone has.
Clyde Sawyer: I’ve got a comment. I hope you’re backing up all this data.
Bill Payne: We are. We are. Every day.
Clyde Sawyer: You haven’t mentioned drainage areas. Are you collecting any data on the amount of area that is draining into a structure?
Bill Payne: Not to specific structures. You can, using these tools be able to define the area that it drains. We do have any outfall draining to “Waters of the State” if it drains more than 50 acres. Those were identified several years ago. There is a map that we have on the GIS that shows that anything that drains more than 50 acres with the outlet point. We just don’t know the path it takes inside that boundary and that is what the As-Found and Inventory is going to give us.
Douglass Stein: Very well then. I apologize for being late. I’m not sure who is chairing the meeting.
Bill Payne: Mr. Adkins.
Ray Adkins: I’ll turn it back over to Mr. Stein.
Douglass Stein: Okay. Have you, did you cover the major review of the Permit requirements?
Bill Payne: Yes.
Douglass Stein: Are you going to do that? Is that what you were just finishing up? It felt like a demonstration of the As-Found and inventory program.
Bill Payne: It was all combined. Part of what we wanted to show was not only the actual requirement itself, but how that requirement interacted with many of the others. Everything that I have just gone over and especially where we have referred back to the As-Found and Inventory programs is to show that interconnection. To show how related all those components actually are.
Douglass Stein: Did you say that the inventory is due to be finished in March, or August?
Bill Payne: The inventory project – our internal deadline is August 1st. The State expects us to have it completed by December 31st of 2005.
Bill McDonald: Now, be sure you understand. That’s the inventory where we are no more than locating these things with our field crews, determining the direction in which they flow.
Douglass Stein: That’s doing most of what we’ve been looking at here.
Bill McDonald: Right. It is not the As-Found which is the surveying part. We’re having that done by survey crews. Like the elevations of the top of the structure and invert and the size of the piping and a lot more information than what we are collecting with our crews. We had to split this up in order to meet the TDEC deadline. Our initial plan was that we would only do the As-Found, not the inventory. But, in order to meet the schedule that TDEC was willing to agree to, we had to go ahead and do the Inventory. But that also helps us with the As-Found that once our crews get far enough ahead, that information will be available to the As-Found and improve the efficiency of the As-Found crews.
Douglass Stein: Something that is coming, I guess, while we are moving into the long-term agenda, topic…have you got something specific that is going to come up underneath that? I would like to ask a question before we get into it. I’ve got one thing I’m not sure I understand. In these recent rainfall instances we’ve just had (of course, I’ve got a lot of projects out there that are sensitive to this much rainfall) when we get all this water and the manhole covers start bubbling off, I was told that part of what is being done and as we’ve built out the infrastructure to handle all this water, is a series of – I thought this applied to just the sanitary sewer, but I was told that it applied to this storm sewer too. Are we going to a series of valves where we can shuttle water from one place to another? Is that true?
Bill Payne: Not in the storm system, no.
Douglass Stein: But the sanitary sewer, you can do that? Is that not right?
Bill Payne: Oh well, only to the extent that in the combined sewer area, there are now shut-offs to prevent overflows to the creeks except underneath extraordinary events. But I am not aware that there is.
Douglass Stein: And not anticipating there being one?
Bill McDonald: We don’t have the ability to do that. The only thing we do, we have some capability where they go into these CSO projects is to bypass it when you have got a real flood situation. But that’s long after you’ve had your flood back wherever you are. These are located way upstream from that. So that is not going to affect anyway.
Douglass Stein: Well, and it’s not something we’re required to do as part of the Notice of Violation is to be able to control big events, is what I’m getting at.
Bill McDonald: No, it is not. We have so much area in the City this comes under our next month’s review is we have so much area that is in the floodplain that these areas in the floodplain really are too big for us to handle. And there is not a lot we can do about the area that floods where it is in the floodplain. We have a lot of people who want us to do something. One thing Bill was talking about before was we have so much pressure from people to do something about that, that our attention to water quality has been diverted where we are trying to do something about that when we really don’t have the capability to do anything. But there are some drainage issues that are smaller that we can do something about, we try to handle those, but these big basins where we have the 100-year floodplain, structures are built and have been there below the floodplain that there’s really not much we can do.
Douglass Stein: Thank you.
Bill Payne: Certainly.
Douglass Stein: On to the next.
IV. Long-Term Agenda Topics.
Bill Payne: One of the things that we, in doing this overview today, is to, remind the Board of the size and the scope of the Permit. We have also taken an opportunity to talk through some of the things. One of the things that we will discuss in next month’s meeting is to go back over some of the Board’s roles and responsibilities. And we have developed this short-term and long-term agenda. It is a front and back paper. There are two things if you look on the back. Items number six and seven. Everything, ultimately builds up to items numbers six and seven. The Board under the Stormwater Ordinance is required to do a bi-annual Stormwater Fee rate review. And, then, also required annually to report back to the Mayor and City Council on the overall status and progress of the Program. The staff, in conjunction FMSM who helped us with our audit work last year, have looked at this information and we are trying to give you all the appropriate background and information that you need. I’m not going to go line by line through these, but, basically, we have the short-term plan to provide an overview of the various program elements that are in the Stormwater Management Program as well as making sure that you have an understanding of a level of service that the City provides to the rate payers. The long-term is understanding what we currently need and what future needs we may have as well as the cost of those and also understanding the budgeting process and any revenue requirements in terms of a much longer term issue. So we are trying to set everything up to provide you the information to answer what is the Program is. What elements are involved in it? What does that Program cost us? So that you can ultimately be able look at that and make recommendations back to both us as a staff as well as to the City Council on what direction you see based on that information. You can also make some recommendations on both Capital Budget as well as Stormwater Fees as far as a review of those in making recommendations to staff and Council. We wanted to give this to everyone so that everybody could know in advance the issues and items that we intend to review.
Douglass Stein: Good. So this is almost our agenda for the next nine months. Right?
Bill Payne: Yes sir.
Douglass Stein: Very well. Any questions about that from the Board?
V. Recognition of Persons Wishing to Address the Board on Non-Agenda Matters.
Douglass Stein: Are there any other people here to see the Board on any non-agenda items?
No persons addressed the Board
VI. Adjournment.
Douglass Stein: Any other questions from the Board about anything else? I entertain a motion for adjournment.
Ray Adkins: So move.
(A second was heard from a Board member)
Douglass Stein: We stand adjourned.