What is Rule 5?
Per the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, Rule 5 requires the development of a Construction Plan. An integral part of the Construction Plan includes a storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan. The storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan addresses several issues. First, the plan outlines how erosion and sedimentation will be controlled on the project site to minimize the discharge of sediment off-site or to a water of the state. Second the plan addresses other pollutants that may be associated with construction activity. This can include disposal of building materials, management of fueling operations, etc. Finally, the plan should also address pollutants that will be associated with the post-construction land use.
The Construction Plan requirements can be found in 327 IAC 15-5-6.5 (Scroll to Page 10) of the Rule. The following information is an outline of items that are required to be contained in a Construction Plan that is submitted pursuant to 327 IAC 15-5. The items within this document have been divided into three distinct categories, including:
- Basic Plan Elements
- Active Construction Component
- Post-construction Component
Each item is identified with a letter and number that can be directly related back to the review sheet that is utilized by staff reviewing a set of Construction Plans that have been submitted for 327 IAC 15-5. Each item also contains information that explains the expectation for each plan element and the level to which it should be described or represented within the plans.
Lake County SWCD and Rule 5
Cover crops are an effective tool to reduce soil erosion and increase nutrient recycling to farmlands, thereby also decreasing the soil and nutrient loads entering ditches and waterways, trapping nitrogen that would otherwise leach away. Cover crops can have numerous other benefits including improvement of soil quality by building soil organic matter, weed control, pest management, fertility management, water availability, and agricultural landscape diversification.
Lake County Soil & Water Conservation District offered producers two cover crop cost shared programs:
• Indiana State Department of Agriculture/Clean Water Indiana
• Lake County Surveyor’s Office/MS4 Stormwater
Quality Program Agreements offered the producers $20 per acre on a maximum of 50 acres, $1000 cap/year to offset the cost of planting an approved cover crop. Over 1,200 acres of cover crops planted in 2015 were responsible for the following nutrient reductions to water bodies:
• 1,114 fewer tons of sediment (over 101 dump trucks)
• 1,599 fewer pounds of phosphorus (prevented 800 thousand pounds of algae from growing on surface water
• 3,192 fewer pounds of nitrogen (38 million gallons of water could have been contaminated)
This is to improve the water quality of Lake County. These conservation measures will provide stabilization of the surrounding agricultural land to minimize sediment and nutrient loading into the watershed.
The Lake County SWCD and the Gary Storm Water Management District (GSWMD) and the Hammond Sanitary District (HSD) have partnered to implement their Municipal Separate Storm Water System (MS4) entity under the Rule 5/13 component and SWCD are contracted to review their Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP). Lake County SWCD has signed these agreements with GSWMD and HSD to fulfill Part 4 of the Minimum Control Measures (MCM) requirement- Construction Site Run-off Control. This ensures that developers, builders, and contractors implement suitable plans to prevent sediment and pollutants from running off construction sites.
The MCM4 includes an internal review and approval of a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP), which includes erosion and sediment control
measures and materials handling procedures, to be submitted as part of the construction plans and specification.
Any project located within the corporate limits of these city’s that include: clearing, grading, excavation, and other land disturbing activities resulting in the disturbance of one acre or more of total land area is subject to the requirement. This includes both new and re-development.
Julie Duttlinger attends the GSWMD’s monthly MS4 meetings.