JACKSON ORDINANCE AIMED AT CURBING EROSION

JACKSON -- A natural depression in a subdivision development called Savannah Woods would have made a good stormwater detention basin. In heavy rains, water would have gathered in the basin instead of running downhill and taking topsoil with it.

But the City of Jackson does not have a stormwater detention ordinance, and the developer is using the land for other purposes. Meanwhile, silt from the subdivision has flowed downhill after rains, robbing the land of some of its topsoil and causing friction with a neighboring developer.

This is a microcosm of a scenario occurring on a bigger scale. Though many other factors are outside Jackson's control, the lack of stormwater detention in the city is contributing to the instability of the Hubble Creek watershed. And erosion along Hubble Creek is threatening county bridges and making farmland disappear.

These are some of the problems the City of Jackson hopes to help curtail with a proposed stormwater detention ordinance expected to be in place within 60 days.

The city is developing its ordinance with the City of Cape Girardeau and Cape Girardeau County so that developers will find consistency wherever they decide to build. Cape Girardeau is modifying its existing stormwater detention ordinance, while the county is working on an ordinance that may take a while longer to complete. With building season at full throttle, Jackson officials don't want to wait.

The city has long needed such an ordinance, Public Works Director Jim Roach maintains. Without an ordinance to control stormwater, the city's existing erosion control ordinance has limited effect, he says.

"The (primary) transport medium for soil is water," he said.

The goal of the ordinance is to make the rate of stormwater runoff after development the same as the rate of runoff before development. This can be accomplished by building basins that are dry most of the time but act as holding ponds during storms, preventing the action of the water from moving soil.

The latest draft of Jackson's stormwater detention ordinance requires an erosion and sediment control plan for any land-disturbing activity involving at least one acre. The plan must include maps identifying soils, forest cover and protected resources, a construction sequence plan, measures to control erosion and sediment, a plan for seeding, sodding, fertilizing and mulching and provisions for maintaining the control facilities.

Last week, Jackson developer John Lichtenegger complained to the Jackson Board of Aldermen about silt coming onto his The Woods subdivision from Stacy Mansfield's Savannah Ridge development. Jackson city workers came to the site and cleared mud from drains in the street. They found a log in an inlet box on Mansfield's land.

Though Lichtenegger claims some trees may have been permanently damaged by the silt, Roach says the amount of silt from Savannah Ridge is relatively minor. But, he said, "if we would have had control from the start, the runoff wouldn't have had any impact."

Mansfield is meeting the requirements of the city's erosion control ordinance, Roach says. That ordinance also requires an erosion and sediment control plan. The developer must provide a drainage plan and take temporary erosion control steps such as erecting silt traps or placing straw bales. These are to be maintained until a vegetative cover is established. The ordinance calls for permanent grasses to be planted as soon as possible after natural vegetation is removed.

Mansfield says it's impossible to stop all siltation when you're moving as much earth as he did at Savannah Ridge.

"John built his subdivision in a valley that has been there many years," he said. "When we build Lacey Street (a future project), all his sediment is going to be running onto me."

Roach says the ordinance can't prevent erosion without a complementary stormwater detention ordinance.

He says some of Lichtenegger's silt problems are due to his own practices, such as leaving downed trees that stop the silt from flowing on through. Lichtenegger says his downed trees are preventing the silt from getting into the street and the storm drainage system. "That's a blessing.... I don't want any silt passing on through my subdivision. I want the erosion to be controlled."

The infrastructure costs of building detention basins are minimal, Roach says. "I envision them as neighborhood parks, grassy areas that can be contoured and can be designed right into the development."

The longer the city does not have an ordinance, the more developments that lack detention basins will be platted. If platted before the ordinance is passed, the city has no power to make a developer alter the plan.

The city suggested that Mansfield put a stormwater detention basin in Savannah Ridge, but that occurred after it was platted and after construction began, he says. Mansfield says the basin would have cost him 20 lots because of the way the development was designed.

"The plat was approved the way it is. It didn't feel fair to come down on me," he said.

Mansfield is not sure detention basins are the best method of handling stormwater. He calls them "potholes" and says large upstream retention basins may be preferable. Another problem he foresees is deciding who would be required to maintain the basins.

"All those issues have to be addressed before we start plopping them in the ground," he said. "And you do lose some lots."

Lichtenegger is in favor in detention basins.

Silt deposits are short-term problems, Roach said, but the long-term effect of not being able to control stormwater runoff is erosion and flooding.

"Once grass is established, they're going to end up with an erosion problem, not a sediment problem," he said.

And when storms do come to Savannah Ridge and The Woods, the runoff eventually will find its way below to the creek that feeds troubled Hubble Creek.