Five questions with Tim Bledsoe

Tim Bledsoe is an engineer with the Aiken Public Works Department who oversees the city's storm drain projects.

1. What is the city's new stormwater ordinance?

The ordinance brings the city of Aiken in compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's stormwater management program. The city of Aiken is not under any directive by the EPA. We're not in any trouble with them. We're compliant at this point. They're becoming more and more strict. They're raising the bar. We do not have any impaired streams.

2. What are the components of the new ordinance?

The ordinance addresses illicit discharge, new construction and post-construction.

3. What is illicit discharge?

Illicit discharges are items that normally would go into the sanitary sewer, but for whatever reason is going into the storm drain. For example, if someone has a septic tank that is failing, it's getting into the stormwater. The ordinance also gives the city the authority to seek out illicit discharge.

4. What does the ordinance say about new and post-construction?

We already have some ordinances on the books about new construction, but now there's new state regulations through the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. In the past, anything less than five acres of disturbance was not required to have an erosion control permit. Now, they've lowered that threshold down to anything one acre or above of commercial development and anything two acres or above of residential development of a disturbed area is going to be required to have a stormwater development plan.

With post construction, the ordinance is intended to address the maintenance of a construction site after completion of a project so as to protect the water quality.

5. Why should people care about stormwater drainage?

Stormwater is not treated. It's not filtered. It's not cleaned. It's just dumped out into streams. Stormwater can take contaminants to the rivers and lakes, and then you start having problems with fish.

I'm not a tree-hugger, but I do like to fish. I'm concerned about what could be getting in the creeks.

There's a creek in Charleston (S.C.) where you can't even eat anything directly out of that water because of the runoff. I don't want to see it get that way around here. I think everybody should pay a little bit of attention to what goes on with stormwater.