Stormwater Management Commission (Part Three)

NOTE: This is the last part of the three articles I have written on SMC, I am amazed at how many people have either emailed me and or called me asking for the "rest of the story" (apologies to Paul Harvey). By the way this is the sequence of events that I can recall bright and early in the morning, so I may actually have some of the facts and timings slightly off, but the gist is basically correct.

About 3 years ago numerous communities started to undergo the re certification process required under the Wetland Development Ordinance (WDO). One of these was Antioch. A vocal group of residents from Antioch township came every month, and in public comment publicly proclaimed how the village were acting poorly, not at all, and should not be re certified.

They brought many special effects, memorably a big mason jar filled with the white mud/slurry that ran into one lake, the gentlemen making that presentation actually was waving that above my head during public comment (tight meeting space). Needless to say their concerns were addressed and slowly put to rest to the comfort level of the board of commissioners of SMC, although eventually leaving Antioch the only community with a "contentious" renewal. The other communities being re certified with no controversy.

Back in April the whole matter was finally put on the agenda for a vote and after an impassioned argument between village officials and residents and then a lively discussion between the commissioners with two options on the table certifying or placing Antioch on probation.

Ultimately the certification process was approved by one vote, my vote was for certification by the way, because that was staff's recommendation.

Some decisions have a way of going away for long periods of time and then returning and biting your posterior, others don't get so far away. This one barely left the room!

A project in Antioch called the Tim Osmond Sports Park was given a grading permit by the Village of Antioch to grade the entire site, without sequencing. If the project had of been sequenced the retention pond would have been graded first, and then the rest of the site would have then been graded. During the discussion in April we received a letter indicating Antioch would be addressing a variety of matters including this project (with sequencing) and gave specific steps they were taking to make sure nothing untoward happened.

Retention areas are at low areas and are designed to accumulate run-off, so having the retention area done first would have protected the entire site during the second part of the sequencing from a major rain event. Water would run into and be held by the detention area at the sports park, protecting the surrounding areas.

So guess what happened, no sequencing, and mass grading of the site, with no retention pond built first. Now think back to early August! What happened? Why the monsoon-like rains that hit the county! The result on this site was the graded area ran down towards the low area that should have contained the newly graded retention pond but did not. So it continued on into a nearby wetland and lake.

To Antioch's credit they took immediate action, and stopped the run off and addressed the issues they needed to, however after the fact not before the fact.

At the September SMC Board meeting (which I did not attend, but my alternate did and other members of the board passed this along to me) the irate residents were back with an "I told you so" and amazingly the Village of Antioch's administrator cockily told the board they handled the incident perfectly! Needless to say the board split 4-4 on de-certifying Antioch, or putting them on probation. The consensus was however to have a public hearing at the next board meeting in October and of course that brings us to last Thursday.

Where after many hours of testimony and debate we voted 9-3 to put Antioch on probation. (the 3 votes were to decertify). Ultimately the 9 decided that if we decertifyed Antioch, SMC would have to drop many valuable projects on our work plan for the rest of the county, to allocate manpower to Antioch's project (even though Antioch would be paying for it). The probation has a huge oversight component and is going to be effective at bringing Antioch back into the fold.

Hopefully this solves the problem, and Antioch has received the message.