President's Message - November/December 1999

Alabama's Congressional Delegation Fighting for Counties

A major storm is quietly brewing in Washington and, as usual, some members of Alabama's Congressional Delegation are in there fighting to help Alabama's counties.

On October 29, the Environmental Protection Agency issued "Phase II" Stormwater regulations that included the lowering of the threshold for obtaining stormwater permits from five acres to one acre for all construction projects. Left unchallenged, this new regulation will tie county government in such a knot of red tape that it will be virtually impossible to even scrape our own dirt roads without a General Discharge Permit from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

The Phase II stormwater regulations apply to urbanized areas with populations between 50,000 and 100,000. In Alabama, the new regulations will bring more than a dozen new counties under the regulations that now confront the urban areas of Mobile and Jefferson counties.

The regulations are time consuming and extremely costly. For example, counties that are regulated under the new guidelines will be required to implement a stormwater management plan that requires "minimum control" activities such as public education and outreach; public notice; mapping of stormwater systems; detection and elimination of "illicit discharges"; control of construction stormwater; review of private construction site plans; post-construction stormwater inspections; and training of county employees in pollution prevention and "good housekeeping."

And all of these requirements do come with a price tag. The EPA estimated that these activities will cost every household in the affected counties at least $9.16 per year. So, in a county like Tuscaloosa, the EPA estimates that the cost will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 million per year. And that money will come directly from the taxpayers in Tuscaloosa County and every other affected county.

Now, these requirements and the financial burden are enough. However, certainly the provision of the new regulations that removes the current exemption for aboveground-vegetated draining ditches and the shifting of the minimum permit requirement from five acres to one acre are the most difficult for the counties affected. It is the removal of these exemptions that will require all counties impacted by either phase I or phase II to begin applying for permits BEFORE almost any road maintenance is undertaken.

In response to a request by our Association, U. S. Rep. Spencer Bachus introduced a bill that reinstates the current exemption counties enjoy for aboveground vegetated ditches and moves the minimum permit requirement back to five acres. Although the legislation was filed late in the 1999 session, the legislation will carry over into the 2000 session of Congress.

As president of the Association, I want to express our gratitude to Rep. Bachus and his staff for their support and for the quick introduction of the legislation just 12 days after the new regulation was issued by EPA. It is certainly comforting to have representatives in Washington who understand the difficulties we in county government face everyday.

Now pending before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the legislation is vitally important to county government in Alabama and across the country. Certainly, we expect those who are unfamiliar with the importance of our role in making roadways safe for the public to oppose this legislation. But is it legislation that MUST pass during the 2000 year.

At the time of this writing, only one member of our Congressional Delegation, Rep. Bob Aderholt, had signed as a co-sponsor of H.R. 3294. We hope other members of our delegation, and others who are close to their counties, will join in this effort in the coming weeks.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Nebraska introduced the companion bill. That measure, S. 1706, has been the subject of a public hearing and is now pending before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Its only co-sponsor in the Senate is Sen. Phil Gramm.

There is no question that this issue will still be pending when county officials from throughout the nation are in Washington for this year's Legislative Conference of the National Association of Counties. We trust all county officials will discuss the topic when they are visiting with their delegations - it will certainly be discussed during the Alabama caucus.