The other reason that phosphorus measurements were too high in Swift Creek Reservoir is that Brandermill was developed with a large percentage of the trees left standing. This is one of the LID techniques that developers can use to meet LID Standards. Brandermill houses are very valuable because of the many trees. Most people who build a house for them selves ask for trees to be left standing. The main stream out of Brandermill has been measured for five years by the county at a 0.12 lbs per acre phosphorus standard. So builders can build neighborhoods like Brandermill with very valuable houses if they just leave many of the trees standing.

Falling Creek Reservoir was closed because of too much sediment from runoff because of clearing too many trees. County Engineers tell us that the same thing will happen to Swift Creek Reservoir if we do not protect the watershed. We just had to go on water restrictions last summer. Let us not destroy this drinking water source just to be able to build more houses at a lower cost per unit to builders. If Chesterfield does not have enough drinking water, no one will want to live here.

Yes it will lower the allowable load from developed land; Yes it will cost more for development to comply with a tougher standard. And yes, EPA is pushing the Bay states to do a better job of protecting water quality, and urban runoff is one piece of that strategy. However, along with the tougher rules are better standards for compliance.

Everyone has been jumping on the Low Impact Development (LID) or Green Infrastructure band wagon without any idea how to implement it effectively or measure compliance. The proposed regulations include a Runoff Reduction Methodology that is based on better science, provides for complete credit of BMPs (both volume reduction and pollutant removal), including green roofs, rainwater harvesting, etc., and most importantly establishes a measure of the benefit of minimization and avoidance of impacts (as was intended, but never achieved through LID).

There is no doubt that reducing phosphorus from developed and developing lands is expensive, and that the overall cost per pound is far greater than removing it from the waste water treatment plant discharge or agriculture runoff. Eroding channels is another significant source of the problem – pulses of nutrient laden sediment are mobilized downstream everytime it rains. So there is needs to be a place for more comprehensive approaches such as targeted watershed management that address these issues.

The state regulators will not develop those types of approaches. But they should encourage and allow them. It is up to the localities to develop and support them with good science: hydrologic, hydraulic, biologic, and geomorphologic data.

The proposed regulations specifically allow for these types of programs.

Better still, in this time of stimulus dollars for research, one would think that the ultimate solution is to design a device that can eliminate phosphorous effectively. If we can measure it accurately, then apparently we can identify it. If we can identify it, we should be able to remove it. It can be done efficiently.

I don’t think that’s the real intent though in this legislation. Government is using this issue as an excuse to limit property and development rights. Its the popular, but not the right thing to do today.