Steve Burns, Community Development Director, York Maine is here to talk about the steps that York is taking to protect their watershed.
Steve introduces himself: "Hi my name is Steve and I am an ecosystem based manager."
Steve starts by letting the audience know that most of his presentation is going to be focused on policy, not science. "I am not a scientist" he says I just use science to understand what policies need to be implemented to achieve our desired outcome.
In York we began to address water quality issues by addressing impervious surfaces. We did this for several reasons, imperious surface impacts a variety of different things, including: water quality; flooding; and retention of open space. Things that the town of York felt were directly related to quality of life. The plan that Steve has developed and is still trying to get approved by the town board is based on a statistic from the Center from Watershed Protection in Maryland. The center has found that the amount of impervious surface in an area is directly related to water quality. More specifically, if an area had 10% or less impervious surfaces there is a high likelihood that the watershed is healthy, however, if an area has 10% to 25% impervious surfaces it is likely that its watershed is impacted, and if it has 25% or more impervious surfaces than the watershed is at risk.
The problems that York, and many other towns face, face when trying to regulate impervious surfaces is inconsistent definitions, and inconsistent application. To resolve these issues Steve's conceptual proposal, which was rejected, had a single definition and applied uniform imperious surface limitations to each land use zone.
So why was this proposal rejected? The town of selectmen said that although the plan simplified the system, there did not seem to be a relationship between the proposals and the science. The next step and what Steve has been doing for the past few years is trying to establish this link. However, he is not going out and doing scientific research, he are taking existing scientific data and trying to create policies based on this data.
One of the reasons that there is so much uncertainty is that the tools that may towns do not meet the needs of the policy makers. For example, quad sheets, which are the maps that most towns are relying on, do not provide enough detail, are often old, and based on false contours. In addition, qua maps usually have two foot contours, which makes them grossly inaccurate. For example, watershed boundaries can be more than a mile off and quad sheets do not accurately reflect the direction that the water is flowing.
Recognizing this York has stop basing their policy on quad sheets, and instead uses GIS photos. GIS photos provide much more detail and give policy makers a realistic picture of the topography at issue. In addition, York has developed impervious surface maps, based on the Center for Watershed Protection statistics to identify areas in the town that have already exceeded the risk percentage and areas in town where development can be regulated to keep the percentage below 10%.
Steve explains that York sees ecosystem based management as doing what is best for the ecosystem as a whole. Achieving this goal requires a holistic and cooperative approach to watershed management. Thus, the town of York has been working with towns who share their watershed to purchase aerial photographs for new stream mapping. In addition, they are taking additional steps like developing new municipal ordinances and re-writing their shoreland zoning laws.
Discussion:
Q: Do you ever uses the LIDAR radar?
A: GIS works better in York because we are such a wet town we do not get clear enough images from the LIDAR radar.
Q: Your project does not seem to satisfy all the elements listed in Michigan's definition of Ecosystem based management.
A: Our goal is not ecosystem based management, rather it is to implement our comprehensive plan. Because our comprehensive plan includes conservation management and regulation of impervious surfaces we felt that we could employ some of the element of ecosystem management to protect out watershed and to create policy that considers the interconnectedness of the individual components of the ecosystem.
Q: We need to stop water quality degradation by making sure that we stop at the 10% impervious surface, on the other hand we want to be engaging in smart growth and compact development. How do we reconcile this?
A: You need to allow areas that have already exceeded the 25% threshold to be developed. Since these areas are already at risk we will continue to allow development in those area and encourage cluster development. However, all other areas need to protected and kept below 10%.
Q: What has been the town's response?
A: The voters in York have been very supportive of conservation. However, the more detail you get into and the more you try to regulate people the tougher it gets.
Q: Is there a link between impervious surfaces and water quality at Cape Neddick?
A: That is my theory. At least that is a piece of it. There is an area just above the headwaters that exceeds 25% impervious surfaces - also probably sewer overflow.
Q: It appears that lawns are acting like impervious surfaces, have you considered that?
A: No our definition of impervious surfaces includes roof, parking lots, etc.
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