Travis County Commissioners Court
January 29, 2008
Item 9
Number 9, receive briefing and discuss the proposed Travis County storm water management program and notice of intent to submit to the Texas commission for environmental quality in order to comply with the Texas pollutant discharge elimination system, general permit txr 040000.
>> it's a mouthful. We've been talking about this for a couple of years and we knew what was coming, have been preparing and today is the day. We actually have until February 11th to submit our proposal to the state. That's not the end of the process, but basically what we would like to do today is lay out what the requirements of the program but what Travis County is proposing to do in its program, and it is truly just a framework because the actions take place over a multiple-year period. This is what we're proposing to the state to do. This morning you heard about the early action plan that was submitted to the state for air quality improvements, and embedded in that are all sorts of actions the county promises to take over a period of time. This is something similar to that, but in an area of water quality and storm water management. So I just want to get the right framework because I think some of you may be expecting that we're submitting, like, regulations today that we're going to adopt and that's not the case. We may have regulations in a year or two that we'll bring back to the court for adoption that deal with storm water management, but that's not what we're doing today. That's the only thing I wanted to preface with. John white and dave are the real work horses, they are the ones that put the program together and they will lay it out in as much detail as you want.
>> did they ever refer to this as swamp?
>> we do have to make a blanket apology for all of the acronyms in this program. When you get involved, it's like stepping through the looking glass. There is a lot of acronyms and bear with us, if there is a acronym you don't follow, don't feel bad, just ask us and we'll try to fill in the blanks for you.
>> so I think actually joe gave a real good introduction there. Storm water is an important element of water quality. The clean water act requires that storm water be controlled in terms of both the flow and the water quality. Phase 1 of the municipal separate storm sewer system program, phase 1 swept the country pretty much in the 1990s. City of Austin has had their program in place for a number of years. Phase 2 is for smaller communities, governmental entities, and that would include us. So there are a number of communities across the state that are required to submit their plan now. And like joe said, the plan is really a timetable to establish the specific actions that we're going to implement. And dave fowler is the one who has been working on this, the nuts and bolts right from the beginning. I think what I’ll turn it over to dave for is describing the content and the major elements of the plan.
>> thank you. Dave fowler with t.n.r. The contents of the -- what you have in your backup information is under the general permit that we're required to submit a notice of intent which is a standard form. You see a form signed by the county judge getting organizational information and then the detail is the swmp or the storm water management program is basically a 5-year plantar the county that plements our storm water management bmp's and that's best management practice. Basically our programs for water quality that we intend to -- that we propose for the next five years for the county. These are also -- as you notice, a lot of these are already being performed. So the county doing quite a bit in several of these areas already so we're taking credit for the county for what we're doing now and then we're proposing additional bmps or programs within the next five years. The seven bmp areas are called minimum control areas or mcms is the acronym. Those seven areas are the first is public education and outreach. And we're proposing several new programs. We don't have a whole lot going on right now that we're actually doing for the county in public education. There are some efforts. The next is a public involvement and participation area. We have a lot of existing activities going on right now with the county in this area that we can take credit in the plan for. The third area is the illicit discharge detection and elimination. And that's for controlling pollutant -- a variety of pollutant discharge that's may occur. The county -- this is another area where the county -- we're doing a lot of existing, we have a lot of existing programs already going on. Number 4 and 5 will the construction storm water runoff control measures. And post-construction storm water management measures. Construction storm water runoff control is controlling primarily the sediment that's coming off of construction sites during the construction period. The post-construction storm water management dmps are primarily measures such as storm water ponds that control the additional runoff that's generated by the additional impervious cover from new development. Here we have -- these two areas, number 4 and 5, affect our -- primarily our t.n.r. Development permit programs. And we're proposing to add some dirl technical standards, review and inspection efforts in these two areas. We would implement that into our existing development permit programs. The sixth area is called pollution prevention, good housekeeping for county operations. This is basically, again, we have a lot of existing efforts underway. This mainly affects the t.n.r., road and bridge and park maintenance facilities that we have in the county. And the final area, number 7, is the authorization for county construction activities, and this is our major c.i.p. Projects and this area describes how we permit our own c.i.p. Projects under these regulations. And we're pretty much doing that now with steve manila's group on number 7. So that's the -- that's a summary.
>> so the gist of this, I think that one of the key distinctions that folks need to -- that people are a little bit familiar with around here is the construction versus post-construction activities. So we're all familiar with the incident out in the hamilton pool area. That would be an example of construction controls. Controls that are in place during the construction process. And then a lot of us have heard about the kinds of controls that city of Austin requires for water quality, and most of the time they are talking about detention base since and water quality structures and things like that. Those are for the most part post-construction controls. You've got the coals that have to be in place during construction versus the shings you design for once construction is done and the site has been stabilized. So those areas 4 and 5, like dave said, will be implemented through our development permit program. So those we are going to be redoing those rules anyway and so these are going to be elements that will be just pulled right into that as part of the process. And back to the public involvement, obviously there will be public involvement throughout that entire process. So that's the --
>> how does the public involvement be conducted?
>> there would be a number of ways. With any of our rule making programs, we would have potentially public meetings, we would have outreach to the regulated community. Whatever it is that we think is going to be necessary for something like that. I guess I wouldn't want to predict exactly how that is going to play out since development services will be leading that activity, we'll be along to ensure that these elements are included in that rule development. But there could be public meetings, hearings, you know, whatever it takes.
>> some of the choices and issues, the minimum area that the county needs to cover is how the census defines as the urbanized area outside the corporate limits of Austin. That is less than the county as a whole. T.n.r. Is recommending the entire county be subject to our submittal for various reasons. It's hard to separate when you are trying to communicate these codes to developers, you know, urbanized area doesn't mean anything to them. Usually it's either the corporate limits or county line. Sometimes the e.t.j. But the e.t.j. Now covers most of the county anyway. So rather than make those one more dwiption and because a lot of these will be -- they are already doing these things inside the city's jurisdiction, they are used to the terminology, used to some of the things we would be recommending anyway, we're suggesting just the entire county be covered by our application. The other is that we're going to go overlapping just like we do on our subdivision regulations, we're going to be overlapping some of these smaller cities and so we're going to end up having to get into some 1445 type agreements so that we're not setting out multiple bmbs in an area where there's one developer and he is saying who is on first. We're going to have coordination so we're together with the smaller cities. We will be proposing some additions to our development regulations. Probably in 2009, that bring some of this in place. That will require additional staffing both on the part of monitoring the plans that are submitted to us, but also then inspectors making sure that what development is proposing to do actually gets put in, just like our subdivision stuff. It does have a fiscal impact. Not f.y. '08, but you should expect some fiscal impact in '09 and general years. Finally, right now there is no -- we are not enabled by crept legislation to charge a fee to recoup the cost of operating the program. Bexar county and harris county do have -- there is a law under which bexar county and harris county levy fees.
>> is that going to be coming up?
>> during our elective session, bob already has a bill drafted that's ready to go that would bracket us into the same law. Thus enabling us to off set some of our costs caused by this program. So we're hopeful that by the time our real cots start hitting, we'll have a way to pass those on to the development.
>> okay.
>> those are some of the issues, financial issues and intergovernmental issues that we may be looking at when we launch this program. That's a pretty thumbnail sketch of what we're getting into. Maybe at this point it's best to open it up for questions. I want to thank dave because he's put a lot of work into this not just in the last couple of months, but he's been working on this probably a couple years.
>> it's been more than that. When I first came here, I reviewed the archives and saw the very first tapes the county was doing of those sessions and there was dave talking about this very program I think four years ago.
>> we had -- yeah, in '03 the program was supposed to have been done by the state. In '03 we had a draft plan and we've taken that draft plan and revised it into what you are seeing.
>> would this require additional staffing when it's fully flushed out? And if so, when would that probably be anticipated? As far as increasing staff. I’m concerned because of the
>> [inaudible].
>> you'll see -- the answer is yes, it will, and you will see that in our next budget request for f.y. '09.
>> lsht.
>> what do we have to do today?
>> we weren't actually looking, we thought because of the -- you know, the scope of this you might want some time to digest it. But at some point before we submit, February 11th, we need to you adopt the notice of intent appear our program.
>> let's have it back on next week as an action item. Questions? Thank you very much. Dave, good job. We'll put in our request for merit increase for you.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 8:09 PM