Mass Grading Restrictions

Eddie in NC

New to the site. I'm a land development engineer, go ahead and take your shots. But we are preparing a site plan for 160 acres of commercial development that will have cut and fill crossing creeks to balance the site. We are in a very high profile area, environmentally speaking, and have run into a new ordinance that went into effect on Jan 1.
"The amount of uncovered area at any one time shall be limited to no more than 20 acres."
Has anyone dealt with this before? Should we mass grade and then cover the entire site. Before we design an erosion control plan I wanted to consult with the people that actually do the work. I was in the field for about 5 years and have seen some plans that just don't work.
The site will be monitered daily and the streams will have a Monitoring and Alert Network Station installed to monitor water quality.
Any assistance is appreciated, thanks.

Wolf

Can't you just bury the streams in a pipe?

Eddie in NC

I wish...

Bob Kovacs

When you say "uncovered area of 20 acres", what exactly does that mean? Could you just straw mulch an area to stabilize it while you move to another area? 20 acres is a pretty big area as you already know- I'm thinkingyou could break the cuts/fills up in such a fashion that you don't have to disturb that much at once, unless you need to have the whole site improved in a very short timeframe.

Bob

denick

Eddie, welcome to the site!

If your from North Carolina is this a State Regulation or a Fed thing?

Unfortunately in CT If someone has 200 acres they only let you use 2 acres. It seems. There really aren't too many large sites of commercial developement like that in a 30 mile radius of us.

Did this regulation sneak up on you?

I would like to hear more about your work its something that I have read about but not been involved in.

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rino1494

Never heard of that before. Seems kind of impossible since in my area, alot of the commerical sites cover more than 20 acres. The only thing to do is do it in phases.

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Dirtguy

Sounds like more complete crap from another BS "save the world" activist group. It sounds to me like on a project of this size it is going to create an excessive import/export situation since you will not be able to utililze the entire site to make the cuts required to generate material for the site fills. Huh, what does that create? Well let's just think about this....

1. Increased fuel consumption and exhaust emissions from trucks unnecessarily needing to haul material to and from the jobsite instead of using all the natural resources located on your property.

2. Unnecessarily wasting landfill space to dispose of material that you could not use on your presently rationed construction area.

3. Unecessarily creating unsightly borrow pits in other areas to generate the fill that you could be getting from onsite.

4. Endangering the lives of civilians by unnecessarily causing tractor trialers on the public roadways to haul materials to and from the jobsite.

5. Unnnecessarily increasing the cost of construction.

That was just a quick stab at a few of the reasons I think that is bad legislation from whatever group that decided this was going to be a good idea.

rino1494

It is just the typical ways of these tree huggers that don't know their you know what, from a hole in the ground. Everything looks good on paper, but in the field, look out.

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Driftwood

Is Jane fonda involved in this?

Dirt Guy , You make great observations! Too bad You wern't on the panel to fight this foolishnes.

NC ,Maybe you should skip around the site and CAREFULLY choice small
multiple areas at a time to cut and fill at a time too make this work.

Nice area for a huge tire dump

Eddie in NC

Thanks for all the replies and the welcome. I'll try to respond to everyones questions and comments at once.
Bob - The 20 acre rule has been on the books, as a suggestion, for a few years now but now its an ordinance. 20 acres seems like a lot of area but if you get a couple of pans and a dozer out there its not a lot of room for those guys. As of now it looks like we will have to phase it. Its just a lot of Erosion control planning and leg work.
Nick - It's actually a local reg, the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County are very progressive and the state doesn't seem to mind. We actually have several projects dowwn here that are falling into this. We have a sit-down with the local agensied sheduled for next week.
Dirt - That will be the main part of our "argument" when we meet with the powers that be next week. We have tried to balance the site as best we can but controlling when, where, and how much you cut and fill in the 20 acre phasing will be a nightmare.
Rino - My sentiments exactly, we do have some $ for contractor outreach. But again, that all sounds good but the implementation is another thing.
Thanks again and I will keep you guys posted on how this thing shakes out.

Ed

MC Excavating

Is the 20 acre rule per job site? Maybe break it up into 8 job sites? Hell, there has to be a loop hole somewhere. Are there any lawyers on this forum?

Dirtguy

Hey MC! I like where your headed with that

Dirtguy

Hey Eddie, how's the project going?

ShawnIUOE132

Eddie welcome to the site. I have a good friend who lives in Waxhaw below Charlotte. That area is bursting at the seams with development! Sometimes I think about packing the iron up and diving into the market down there. I am for the work in phases plan that has been mentioned by the other guys. Cut, fill, compact, finish grade, and keep waterways flowing clean (silt fence straw mulching or hydroseed). I realize all that is easier said than done especially with the rains that you guys get in that area. My buddy down there said the rains can be like monsoons! Good luck!

690E

Here in jane fonda land, California, we have a similar law. Disturbance of more than 2.5 acres requires a state water quality monitoring permit.

Funny thing is that no one knows about it and the local county guys do not want to enforce it on privatre jobs because they dont get any money from it and mountains of paperwork.

Therefore we have a situation of "complaint based enforcement" whch means if your neighbor is an ass%^&^$& then the Stae guys will visit you.

I received such a visit and offered the inspector the locations of about 50 offenders locally - magically he became very easy going, and eliminated any penalties. These guys want to go home to the wife and kids like us after work , and he saw a huge mess coming.

Political garbage. The local conservation district already handles the inspections and enforcement this clown was trying to dupplicate.

dirtdiggencat

get used to it guys, its the way things are headed everywhere.
we did a subdivision last year and had to have a state certified E&SC man on the premises daily, who was to monitor and inspect our "responsible land disturbing" operations hour by hour. and get this,,,, 3 acres at a time!

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Eddie in NC

Thanks for the info, kinda glad I'm not the only one...

I think the hardest part of this will be the permitting and red tape, but we are still in the design phase right now.

This job is actually just north-east of Waxhaw off I-485 in the dreaded Goose Creek watershed.

I'll keep you guys up to date with the progress.

PipeGuy

Eddie,
You might consider consulting with a fellow design professional in the Washington, Baltimore, Frederick Maryland region. We have been accomodating comprehensive and strictly enforced S/E/C requirements here since the early 80's and I can't imagine there aren't some practical 'tricks' they'd be happy to share with someone in a non-competing market.
I regularly see multi-phase S/E/C requirements on projects in my area that serve to limit disturbance of the site as a whole. It's not at all unusual for such requirements to significantly impact the scope, sequencing and cost of earthwork and utility construction.
In a nutshell, you're probably looking at lots of perimeter controls and phased sediment traps to facilitate "balancing" the on-site cut/fill volumes.

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Wolf

Why not just cover up the streams, ignore the 20 acre thing and pay the penalty. The penalty can't be that big, and given the kind of commerical development you are doing, the fines will be insignificant. Just do it, and ignore the tree-hugging influence. The inspectors prolly think this is a ridiculous leaf licker ordinance too. Let me know what happens.

PipeGuy

Why not indeed?

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