Storm Water Zone:

The storm of 7/25/01 was a catalyst, causing me to investigate more fully our storm water ordinances. Let me quickly summarize our current situation. First some definitions:

100 Year Flood Plane: The level flood water is expected to achieve nominally once every 100 years. This is based on averages. In a true 100 year flood plane there is a good chance ( about 36%) the water wouldn't reach the level in any given 100 year period. There is a similar chance the water would reach or surpass the 100 year level two or more times in a 100 year period.

Flood Way: The area within the flood plane where water is moving.

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) has provided model ordinances for calculating the 100 year flood plane. Our Township has adopted these methods into our ordinances. We also have regulated run off from development. The new run off is not allowed to be more than the pre-development run off. With a good 100 year flood plane, and run off from development never exceeding the status quo, you would expect that we may have water problems at the most every 30 years or so. However, our experience is that many houses have water problems nearly once a year or more. We would not expect an accurate 100 analysis to be exceeded more than perhaps 3 or 4 times in any 100 year period. How can this be? It turns out the ordinances allow the developer to assume all culverts act at 100% efficiency 100% of the time. Nothing ever clogs with snow, ice, leaves branches etc. Such an analysis is naive. I requested that Terry Manmiller prepare a report for the 8/9/01 meeting detailing the condition of culverts in the township. He included it in the road report.

As you can see many of these are restricted by at least 25% or more. At the 8/9/01 meeting I moved that the township engineer take Terry's report, and return to the September meeting with suggestions on making the storm water calculations better reflect reality. This motion passed.

As I see it we have three problems with our storm water ordinances:

• We do not have any margin for failure (all systems are assumed to work 100% of the time)

• Even if the status quo run off is achieved after development, we don't assure that excessive run off does not occur during construction

• We need to better account for ground surface conditions. Close clipped grass lets water run quicker than brush, or ivy.

What you can do to help:

Do not dump grass clippings, leaves etc. near the flood way. It will block a pipe or culvert. You may be causing a problem for your neighbor down stream or yourself.

9/13/01 Meeting information:

The clean up of the 7/25/01 storm has cost the Township $40,000.

It was decided to have township personnel do some work to temporarily mitigate storm water running behind homes on Cassidy Court in the Blandon Meadows Development. A more permanent solution will have to be arrived at with the participation of the developer and neighboring developers. Having the township fix inadequate storm water systems in the wake of developers amounts to a virtual subsidy of those developers. We need stronger storm water ordinances to assure new construction has storm water designs that are fault tolerant.

My position on Storm Water:

We should require new construction to have a buffer between the 100 year flood plane and any buildings. It was suggested this buffer be an arbitrary elevation say 3 feet or so. This would be an improvement, but we can do better. With the computer models available today, it is simple for the designer to calculate a worst case buffer level assuming 100% blockage of all the pipes and culverts.

A typical plot plan near a stream would have two lines the 100 year flood plane and the worst case buffer line. There should be three requirements for construction between the two lines:

• Finished floors must be 1 foot above the worst case buffer level.

• There will be no openings into the sewer (vents and manholes) below the worst case buffer level.

• Houses located between the two lines should have no basements.

Had these ideas been included in our ordinances years ago, we could have avoided many problems. You may think the no basement provision is a little severe, but the water is likely to achieve the buffer level when ice and slush block culverts during a thawing spring rain. Builders put furnaces, and electrical boxes in basements. A resident in the buffer area will not appreciate losing his electricity, heat and whatever he has stored in his basement on a cold night in March. This is a little bit of a departure from my usual attitude of letting people do what they want. The problem is, people have an expectation that the Township has protected them from water problems. This expectation can result in tax money being used to clean up after developers. Using tax money for such a purpose is a subsidy of the developer. I think a more rigorous ordinance is the best way to protect other tax payers in the township.

Terry, and Karl indicated these changes are not needed, since most of the development has already occurred in Maidencreek. This may be true, but we still have the Schaeffer farm. Infrastructure improvements to US 222 and the continued growth along the Reading Allentown corridor may cause demand for more development in the future. Storm water ordinances that are more realistic will cause developers to bear the true cost of their contribution to storm water. The earlier developers got a bit of a free ride with storm water, this can not continue.

10/11/01 Meeting information:

Mark Kutzmuller prepared an ordinance similar to the ideas I expressed above. This ordinance would require a calculation of a flood level with the culverts 50% blocked, and finished floors (including basements) must be 1½ feet above that level. I can support this ordinance. I also would like to see the 100% blockage level placed on the drawings, this is trivial for the developer (once the 50% level is calculated) and would give potential buyers information as to the worst case water level. The distance between the 50% and 100% lines would give the township a good idea as to the sensitivity of the area to blockages. Terry and Karl were quick to point out that most of the land affected by this change has already been built up. I regret that this is true. The township would have profited from better storm water management 20 years ago.

11/8/01 Meeting Information:

Mark Kutzmuller presented an updated draft of the storm water ordinance. The main change was abandoning the idea of a 50% blockage calculation for a 100% blockage calculation. This was largely due to the fact that the 50% blockage is hard to define (i.e. is it ½ the pipe from the bottom half or top half or sides? ) We instructed Mark to merge this draft with the existing storm water document. In the next meeting is it likely we will decide to advertise the draft for adoption in the January Meeting. My concern is the new proposed development for the Scheaffer tract be subject to this new ordinance.

1/7/02 Meeting information:

This new ordinance was passed 3 to 0.

email: Roy Timpe

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