North Wales holds hearing on updated stormwater plan
Officials say regional plan could still supercede local one
An updated stormwater management plan is another step closer to going on the books for North Wales.
Borough council held a formal public hearing Tuesday night on an updated plan meant to set out how the borough meets its Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of sediment removal from the Wissahickon Creek.
“Our job, as a municipality, is to make sure we have a pollutant reduction plan, as well as a TMDL plan, in correspondence to the regulation of the MS4 permit that we are issued from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection,” said Borough Manager Christine Hart.
Stormwater rules and regulations set forth by the state spell out pollution limits for each town under their municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4) permit.
Those rules and regs have been discussed at the council level since early 2016, when North Wales signed on to a joint effort led by the Wisshickon Valley Watershed Association. That joint effort is meant to produce a regional plan to help each municipality meet new, more strict state requirement for removing sediment from runoff, but in June the borough was told by DEP that their own individual plan needed to be updated and resubmitted.
“DEP obviously has a deadline they wanted us to meet, and then we’re hoping the result of the alternative TMDL will be more effective, and lead to more, better practices in place,” said Hart.
Council discussed revisions to their TMDL plan in July, and the full document was included in council’s meeting materials packet for Aug. 28. The 70-page plan spells out the waste load allocation for each municipality within the Wissahickon watershed, and the borough’s share.
Hart and council President Jim Sando said the public comment period for residents to submit feedback started on Aug. 10 and runs through Sept. 9.
“We need to prove that the public was at the meeting,” Sando said, encouraging all residents present to sign an attendance sheet, even though none made any comment.
Hart and Gifford said they both hope and expect the regional plan to prove more effective, at a lower cost, than the local plan — but doing any projects will have to wait for approval from DEP.
“They’re supposed to accept the alternate plan across the board, and then any improvements that we do will be funded collectively, and have a greater impact,” Hart said.
“Which, realistically, is the only thing that’s going to actually make a difference for all of the combined municipalities: to go in together, so we can have the greatest impact to clean the streams and stormwater,” Gifford said.