New Regulations Could Delay Permits, Projects

County officials fear that new federal regulations could have an impact not only on county projects, but on business as a whole.

County Administrator Chappell Hurst told County Council Tuesday that the permitting process has become “much more intense.”

“I know you've heard on TV … about the complexity of all the regulations,” he said. “It's thousands of pages.”

New federal stormwater regulations enforced by DHEC could have have a drastic impact on construction.

“You now have to measure the rainfall that falls on the lot where you're doing your permitting, where you're going to do your construction,” Hurst said. “So you have to have a rain gauge in order to tell how much water is falling.”

“For how long?” Councilwoman Jennifer Willis asked.

“Until the project is complete,” Hurst replied.

The new regulations apply to “any project where you're disturbing more than an acre of land,” he said.

Hurst said if the lot is near a weather station, that local data could be utilized to meet the requirements.

“But, if you're say up on Highway 11 and there's no weather station, you'd actually have to physically put that gauge on there,” Hurst said.

“Who's reading the gauges?” Council Chairman G. Neil Smith asked.

“Whoever's doing the project,” Hurst replied. “The people responsible for the project.”

“So if you're the homeowner doing the project, you're responsible, if you're the (general contractor), you're doing?” Willis asked.

“The general contractor or whoever is doing these projects, you're going to have to have that gauge and you're going to have to monitor it and do the paperwork,” Hurst said.

The county doesn't have to set up the rain gauges except for its own projects, but it will be responsible to making sure the monitors are in place.

“We'll inspect it,” Hurst said.

“We have to make sure it's there and they're recording the data,” Willis said.

The county is looking at options to make sure people are aware of the new requirements.

“We will have some seminars that will explain it,” Hurst said.

The regulations also call for the placement of a lock box with all of the stormwater plans about that particular project “from beginning to end,” Hurst said.

“What happens when the lock box disappears?” Smith asked.

“That's another question,” Hurst said. “I wonder how it's going to stay there.”

Since the state has final approval of the permitting process, officials worry that the new regulations, combined with having to get the go-ahead from Columbia, will delay projects.

“What's this going to do for our timeline for approvals?” Willis said.

Hurst said it took three months to get permits for the planned economic development building at the Pickens County Commerce Park.

“The timeline is going to be a lot greater for doing these things because there's a whole lot of changes in these rules and regulations,” he said. “They're going to require a lot more work and more forethought. They'll be tighter inspection standards that will have to be adhered to once you have the permit and the work begins.”

Hurst thinks it will cause delays as well for “people who are trying to make a living.”

“And there's nothing I can do about it,” he said.

“So our streamlined, business-friendly community that approves permits quickly now has their hands tied, with no control,” Willis said.

“Exactly,” Hurst said. “We're still going to do the best we can.”

County officials fear they'll get the blame for these new requirements, when they had nothing to do with them.

“We have been inserted as the bad guy,” Hurst said. “We take all the heat and all the blame, yet the entity that has final say-so is the state.”

“They're going to blame us,” Smith said.

“If they're going to have the approval process, (the state) ought to put the inspectors in here and let them do the inspections,” Hurst said.

County Council Trey Whitehurst said the county needs to be proactive in letting homeowners and contractors alike know that they need to contact the state with any questions and concerns over the regulations.

“This is done at the federal level,” Hurst said. “The federal passes these rules down to the state level and the state level passes them on down to us. We are overseen by the state. The state has given the counties the responsibility for dealing with people on a one-on-one basis. We catch the flack, then they ultimately have the final approval of the permit, not us. They're involving us as a middle man, which takes the flack from them and puts it on us – and we're not the ultimate authority.”