EPA rules try to rein in runoff

COUNCIL BLUFFS — Those towering snowdrifts will soon melt into headaches for land developers and homeowners alike, but the Environmental Protection Agency will add a catch to the muddy mix.

A final rule the agency issued in November to reduce water pollution from construction sites became effective in February. The regulations to improve water quality and reduce the amount of sediment washed from construction sites will be phased in over four years.

“It’s 20 years too late,” said Kristi Jerkovich of Council Bluffs, executive officer of the Southwest Iowa Association of Realtors. “This is a long time coming.”

Jerkovich has spent years battling erosion in the Loess Hills, including building three retaining walls. The set of practices — called “low-impact development” — issued by the EPA would have been beneficial years ago, she said.

But those new regulations and monitoring could cause headaches for developers, landscapers and engineers. To ease the pain — and costly fines — the West Pottawattamie Soil and Water Conservation District will hold workshops on low-impact development techniques tailored to the needs and concerns of area developers and designers.

Landscape architect Debra Schiel-Larson of Indianola has served as the planner for Johnston’s municipal storm water project.

“We don’t want to be just regulators,” Schiel-Larson said of city officials that must now enforce the regulations. “We want developers to understand and have input and streamline the process.”

Battling conventional design and engineering practices has been Schiel-Larson’s greatest challenge. At the workshop Thursday, she wants to show developers how to design a project that complies with the new regulations.

Landscape architect Brian Leaders of Underwood has spent 13 years working with developers and wishing he could do something about erosion. Leaders has often been asked to design against regulations when a developer hoped to negotiate with a municipality.

“When the authorities said no, I’d have to redesign it, anyway,” he said.

Schiel-Larson noted similar experiences.

“Designers might spend thousands on drawings that don’t meet regulations,” she said. “We want to reach people before they reach that stage.”

Added Leaders, “It’s frustrating not to be able to truly design to the land on the developments I work on.”

Now, with federal low-impact guidelines on the books, enforcement will follow, and Leaders is hopeful.

“There are some developers in the area currently going beyond what is required already,” he said. “They’re not being congratulated right now, but more people are interested in environmentally friendly subdivisions.”

Thursday’s workshop will be at Iowa Western Community College. For more information, go to www.pottswcd.org.

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