Agenda - 02-28-2011 - C.1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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191 599 Approved 2/2/11 600 Craig Benedict: Public sewer lines would trump the stream buffer regulations. There is a balance of the public interest for public 601 water and sewer in certain areas and the aspects of the streams. If we thought that public water and sewer would cross stream 602 buffers or parallel up the bank, it is something that would be occurring on a regular basis within our economic development 603 zones. There are streams there too. In many cases in rural areas, we are not going to be crossing streams because the septic 604 systems are located on site and usually outside the stream buffer. 605 606 May Becker: Are you saying there is already the right for the ... 607 608 Craig Benedict: Yes, they have the right to put public utilities within stream buffers. 609 610 Alan Campbell: I read this as a technical correction. There are many laws that say this is the way things happen and somehow 611 that creates a technical problem with another wall. This is fixing that saying this does not violate something we said you can't do 612 even though we can't prohibit it anyway. 613 614 Pete Hallenbeck: Is this referring to a crossing or parallel to the stream? Or does it matter? 615 616 Craig Benedict: It says that when it crosses, it should cross as much to a 90 degree angle as possible. It also pertains to 617 parallel streams and where the parallel could occur. 618 619 Pete Hallenbeck: One thing that is interesting about both buried utilities and sewer lines is the area of the buffers have to be 620 kept clear of trees and what is the impact here if someone comes along and the easiest way to put a cable in is to follow the 621 stream line and say we can do that and keep that 12 foot area clear of trees. Is there anything you can do about that? 622 623 Craig Benedict: There is certain public service commission rules as you can see gas lines that they go cross country, or electric 624 lines where we have very little input. There is more input with the location of sewer lines because we are working with the utility 625 provider and have some environmental sensitivity to the location. 626 627 Pete Hallenbeck: On item 1, 1 am not sure why when we talk about buried utilities, it calls it electrical, telephone, cable, 628 television. If it is necessary to call those out, I would also throw in data to make sure we can do everything but run a fiber optic 629 cable. 630 631 May Becker: On sewer lines who determines how far from the stream they are..... 632 633 Craig Benedict: Terry, are there zone one exclusions for sewer lines? 634 635 Terry Hackett: Generally, yes. If it is a sewer line public the utility will still have to get state approval so if it is a public utility, the 636 jurisdiction is usually removed from us and they generally don't want any utility line running parallel in the stream buffer if they 637 can avoid it and if it has to be it is usually in the outer 20 feet. If utility lines cross the stream buffer perpendicular, the state 638 buffer rules has an exempt category that says if you clear less than 40 feet to build it and maintain only 10 feet over the pipe, that 639 is exempt. Sewer lines are also approved by the Division of Water Quality that approves sewer systems. We would look at 640 these if a private developer is installing the utilities as part of their development and turning it over to public utilities. 641 642 Brian Crawford: If you build a community waste water system and for some reason turn it over .... but it's possible. 643 644 Terry Hackett: But the utilities lines do have some additional review if it is the larger gas transmission lines, some of those have 645 a federal review process. There are added steps beyond what we do for a utility project. 646 647 Mark Marcoplos: From a practical standpoint, the impact of sewer lines is at its peak when they are being installed and you can 648 never write a policy keeping someone from driving along the stream bank and taking out extra trees when it comes down to who 649 is monitoring the process when it happens and how much integrity they have. There are ways to do it with a lot less impact and 1 650 don't know if there is a policy that can really write site specific stuff. 651 652 Terry Hackett: As far as sewer outfall and buffer easements, because a lot of the older, for instance here in the town of 653 Hillsborough, they follow right next to the stream and other communities have the same problem and they are looking at how 654 narrow can they maintain that maintenance corridor to gain access. Obviously if you have crossings or man holes that are down 655 in the flood plain, you want to be able to access them if you have an overflow. We are also having discussion with the state 656 regarding getting some shrubs back here so we could actually have a riparian buffer that has woody vegetation and still maintain 657 some integrity in the stream buffer. 658 11