Jonathan Jobe
Shawn Lindsey

Some 35 years after the federal Clean Water Act went into effect, stormwater management programs have moved to smaller cities and towns in Northwest Georgia and Southeast Tennessee, officials said.

The purpose is to protect water resources from pollution, said Phil Pfeifer, the Dalton, Ga., stormwater manager. The need applies to rural areas, too, and eventually the rules will, too, officials expect.

“That pollution can come from driving, roofs, roads, pesticides on lawns and even dogs and cats,” he said.

There are regulations for street runoff and other pollution threats to the nation’s waterways, Mr. Pfeifer said.

But some of the worst offenders are more prevalent in rural areas and are subject to virtually no controls, he said. Those include agriculture, mining and the timber industries.

But communities have to pay for policing offenders or correcting problems.

Cleveland, Tenn., Stormwater Manager Jonathan Jobe said the city’s general fund pays for his salary and that of a technician and materials.

“We are assigned within the Public Works Department, and we have $210,000 in stormwater funds,” Mr. Jobe said. “A utility district stormwater fee was turned down five years ago. One of our goals is to have the water of four streams here improve and be removed from the list of impaired streams.”

Bradley County Engineer Sandra Knight’s duties include stormwater management.

“Our budget was $135,000 in fiscal year 2007 and includes technicians for site inspections,” she said.

The unfunded federal mandate, and the county and municipal ordinances to meet it, usually are enforced by state environmental agencies.

Marion County, Tenn., Mayor Howell Moss said his county’s small population has so far exempted it from a required stormwater management plan or a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

“Developers with construction projects in Marion apply to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation office in Chattanooga for permits and inspections,” Mr. Moss said.

Officials in the Marion towns of Jasper, South Pittsburg and Kimball said they have yet to face the requirements.

But Dunlap, Tenn., Vice Mayor Dan Barger knows what’s ahead.

“I’m sure it’s coming,” he said. “I expect everyone will eventually be required to submit a plan and have a permit.”

Athens, Tenn., Public Works Director Shawn Lindsey also serves as city stormwater manager.

“We received a Phase II permit several years ago, but salaries and materials are incorporated into existing public works operations,” he said. “We have a requirement to periodically test and monitor streams.”

Catoosa County, Ga., has a stormwater budget of $286,000 this year, with $86,000 from the general fund and the rest from fees paid by builders and developers.

A major expense is from dozens of ponds the county once freely permitted around subdivisions. They must all be monitored.

“We stopped that with a new ordinance, and developers must now take responsibility for maintaining the ponds or create homeowner associations to maintain those,” Catoosa Commissioner Bobby Winters said.

Fort Oglethorpe building official Mark Lindsay, the city’s stormwater manager, said inspections are another expense.

“We must inspect construction sites such as Home Depot during development of that site and subdivisions where detention ponds may be required to delay runoff in a controlled manner,” he said.

All the stormwater officials stressed that educating builders and developers, and the general public, is critical for cleaner water.

And the goal of the Clean Water Act, to restore all the nation’s waters to fishable and swimmable conditions, takes planning and work, officials say.

But the practices become familiar, said Jill Lacy, a stormwater codes enforcement officer in Fort Oglethorpe, like the silt screens and hay bales that line construction sites to keep soil from washing into streams.

Clean water is worth the time and money, she said.