Planning Board recommends by-law change for stormwater basins
Date: 9/19/2011
Sept. 19, 2011By Chris Maza
Reminder Assistant Editor
EAST LONGMEADOW — At their Sept. 12 meeting, the Planning Board voted to recommend two by-laws brought to them by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and Board of Public Works.
The board voted unanimously to recommend Article 10 of the warrant for the Sept. 26 Special Town Meeting, which will propose the addition of a new section of the town’s General By-Laws to outline the maintenance responsibilities for stormwater basins.
“[Planning Director] Robyn Macdonald and I have been working on this for years because it seems like every one of the catch basins were created under a different process with different boards and they’re in different states of repair,” Sean Kelley, senior project manager for the DPW, said.
Kelley explained this proposed by-law “sets the parameters for enforcing stormwater catch basin maintenance” and allows the DPW to establish the rules and standards relative thereto.
David Loring, a senior project manager at Tighe & Bond, assisted in the creation of the by-law, which he said is required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Without such a by-law enacted, the town may be subject to heavy fines.
“The intent is to protect the property, health and safety of the town,” Loring said. “We found that many basins in town, officials don’t know exactly where they are.”
Loring added that maintenance of these basins are the responsibility of the landowner or homeowners’ association and a landowner agreement should exist between the town and those responsible for the basin’s upkeep.
The DPW provided Tighe & Bond with a list of known detention basins and only 12 have a landowner agreement.
“A lot of people don’t have an agreement because they don’t know they have [a detention basin],” Loring said.
The by-law would give DPW employees the right to enter property containing a basin in order to perform inspections. Employees would be required to provide evidence of their employment by the town.
Under the by-law, if the basins were not maintained to the Board of Public Works’ specifications regarding detention basin maintenance, the property owner would receive written notice and would have 30 days to correct maintenance issues.
If within that period of time the repairs or other maintenance were not addressed, the DPW would have the right to enter the area with any equipment necessary for the basin to be properly brought up to standards, with the cost of the repairs falling upon the landowner.
If the repairs were not paid for in 30 days, the town would place a lien against the property owner.
If the entity responsible for maintaining a basin is a homeowners’ association and the DPW is required to make repairs, each of the owners would be assessed an equal share of the debt, regardless of whether or not their lot contains the basin.
“It’s well written, sound and maintains local control,” Planning Board Chair Peter Punderson said of the by-law. “This is something I support strongly.”
Article 11, which was also recommended unanimously by the board, proposes to amend the current General By-Law pertaining to dumping into storm drains.
Tracy Adamski, another senior project manager at Tighe & Bond, said the EPA requires such a by-law because the town has a municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4).
Kelley said the current by-law, which he believed was written in the 1960s, is cursory and the fines associated with it are not a deterrent. The current by-law simply states that disposal of foreign substances into storm drains is prohibited and does not outline what constitutes a foreign substance. The fine for each offense is $50.
“One of the problems in town is we don’t have the ability to go out and say, “You’re in violation of this by-law,’” he said. “The intent of this by-law is not to go out and look for infractions. We’re more interested in educating people.”
The amendment to the by-law would outline definitions relating to stormwater runoff, especially from development sites, whether commercial, industrial or residents, into storm drains.
Section 8.070.110 of the proposed by-law change states that “No person shall dump, discharge, cause or allow to be discharged a pollutant or non-stormwater discharge into MS4s or into waters of the Commonwealth.”
It also states that making or maintaining a connection to a storm drain for that purpose would be prohibited, regardless of whether or not it was allowed by law at the time the connection was made. No person would be able to disrupt the flow of stormwater into or out of an MS4 without approval from the Board of Public Works.
Fines for each violation would increase to $200.
Exemptions to the by-law would include incidental discharges occurring through normal use and maintenance, firefighting activities and road de-icing and maintenance.
