Two hefty draft documents that most Spokane-area business owners probably know little about could raise the costs of dealing with storm-water runoff regulations beginning next year, some reviewers of the documents say.


The documents, which together comprise about 850 pages, are a Stormwater Management Manual and a Model Stormwater Program.


They were prepared by the Washington state Department of Ecology in collaboration with a group of community leaders and local officials from east of the Cascades.


The documents are designed to help cities and counties on this side of the state meet new federal laws pertaining to storm-water runoff that take effect in March.


Those laws will apply to at least 16 of the larger cities in Eastern Washington, including Spokane, and the urban areas of eight counties.


A lot of it is just collecting and corralling into one document (the Stormwater Management Manual) a whole bunch of existing regulations, which is good, but I think ultimately there will be additional costs, based on what Ive seen, says Mike Taylor, president of Taylor Engineering Inc., of Spokane.


Mark Richard, government-affairs director for both the Spokane Home Builders Association and the Spokane Association of Realtors, says, I think theres no doubt that theres going to be additional cost. Theyre going to require more land to be consumed for retention and storm-water runoff. We hope its worthwhile.


Richard says hes keeping an open mind about the proposed guidelines and about a public-comment process that Ecology has been conducting to refine them.


He says hes concerned, though, that while the documents include some calculations on how much the new regulations will cost local governments to implement, they include no similar cost-impact figures for property owners and developers.


To us, thats an absolute must before we can proceed, he says.


Richard was one of about 60 people who attended two informational workshops Ecology held here on Oct. 14 to discuss the draft documents. Other workshops were held later that week in Wenatchee, Yakima, and Kennewick.


Ecology said in a news release issued earlier this month that the storm-water plans developed by Eastern Washington cities and counties need to address detecting illegal discharges, reviewing construction plans to make sure erosion is controlled during and after construction, and ensuring that municipalities are using pollution-prevention techniques in their everyday practices.


The city of Spokane and Spokane County already have storm-water regulations in place, but say they expect to modify their requirements, as needed, to be consistent with the Ecology-generated standards.


Jim Seitz, a staff member with the Association of Washington Cities who helped develop the guidance documents, says the manual and model program contain common-sense solutions for managing storm-water runoff on this side of the state.


For too long, the available guidance for proper storm-water management practices has come from work done in Western Washington, he asserts.


Ecology published a Stormwater Management Manual for Western Washington in August 2001 as an update to a predecessor manual prepared in 1992. The agency initially proposed that the manual could be updated to cover the entire state, but Eastern Washington representatives objected to that, citing the much different geology and hydrology on this side of the state, after which Ecology agreed to create a separate manual.


An initial meeting attended by more than 70 Eastern Washington representatives was held in June 2001, and the project kicked off formally in November. The draft manual, which basically contains technical data, and the model program, which provides a template for communities to use in developing their storm-water programs, were released a few weeks ago.


One of the concerns, Richard says, is that Ecology is trying to gather public comment over about a two-month period, which he contends is inadequate for such voluminous documents with potentially far-reaching impacts.


Im optimistic that DOE is going to grant us (additional) time. I dont think two months is enough, he says. One of our hopes is to get a condensed, but very realistic summation of the thing that we can follow and understand.


Both Richard and Taylor say they havent had time to review the draft documents fully.


The first thing that concerns me is just the sheer magnitude of the document, says Taylor. Its just a lot to get your arms around.


He adds, We have been barraged in the last five or six years with stuff to review, from state Growth Management Act documents to updated local comprehensive land use plans. It just seems like one thing after another of such a large magnitude that we just struggle to stay on top of it.


The new federal regulations that take effect next March stem from a 1987 amendment to the federal Clean Water Act.


Phase I of the amendment, initiated in 1990, requires National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits for large construction sites and metropolitan areas with populations greater than 100,000.


Phase II regulations, which are those that are to be implemented next spring, apply to cities with populations below 100,000 and construction sites between one and five acres in size.