Holiday Mountain Resort (HMR), located just upstream from the White River along South Sylamore Creek has requested a modification to their waste treatment facility which will allow a connection to their existing waste treatment facility. The request would allow a sewer connection from a 37 home development called Creekside Subdivision along South Sylamore Creek - the exact location of which is not obvious from the permit modification application. About year ago when HMR requested a renewal of their operating permit, it was specifically stated that there was no plan to allow this planned subdivision to hook into the HMR facility. The subdivision developer has already apparently secured the easements from the owners who own property the sewer line will traverse and is obviously working with Holiday Mountain Resort to make the necessary modifications to thier treatment plant so it will handle the effluent from this new subdivision. The NPDES permit modification application clearly shows these agreements. I suspect this subdivision is located on the opposite side of South Sylamore Creek from HMR's existing facility and I will be trying to identify exactly where these houses will be built with respect to S. Sylamore Creek and the HMR treatment facility. I will also attempt to specifically locate where the sewage connection line will run and if it crosses South Sylamore Creek, where and how this crossing is to be made.
Another area of concern is that there apparently is an SWPPP in the works for the first several lots of this subdivision which is described as involving less than 5 acres. I suspect this listing of less than 5 acres hass being defined so that a comprehensive SWPPP with a permit can be avoided. If this development is for 37 homes whch would be consistent with the requested modifiacation to the HMR waste facility modification, then a SW permit and a complete SWPPP evaluation and plan must be produced and approved. I suspect this smaller development parcel is an intentional attempt to avoid having to develop the comprehensive SWPPP which would go along with the SW Permit.
I have filed a request for a public hearing with ADEQ on this requested modification to the Holiday Mountain Resort's treatment facility and will post when and where this hearing will be held as soon as it is established and will post additiional information on this subdivision and the sewage connection line location as it becomes available.
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The gimmick of building less than 5 acres now doesn't work. The developer still needs a SWPPP for any portion of a development that ultimately disturbs more than 5 acres. The following excerpt from the NPDES Construction General Permit says it best:
“Large Construction Activity” is defined at 40 CFR §122.26(b)(14)(x) and incorporated here by reference. A large
construction activity includes clearing, grading, and excavating resulting in a land disturbance that will disturb equal to or greater than five acres of land or will disturb less than five acres of total land area but is part of a larger common plan of development or sale that will ultimately disturb equal to or greater than five acres.
I made a typo for those of you who may want to go and view the Creekside SWPPP yourself. The Permit number is ARR152042, I missed the second 'R' in my last input. I also compared the SWPPP planned layout for the stormwater containment ponds with my USGS map, and I think I've got the location of this development pinned down now. If I have the loctation correct, it would place two of the homes planned and part of a third at an elevation very close to that of the swining bridge at Holiday Mountain Resort which was washed out by the fllo about 25 years ago (1982 I think)! I'd say this puts the homes at high risk.
This post makes a correction to my Dec. 14th post, and a new post which I'm about to add will updates ya'll on what I know now.
Additional research I did this morning has resulted in uncovering some discrepancies. The development is apparently called Creekside Villages, but the SW Permit (AR152042) shows the location based on the Lat & Long in a different location as that described in the SWPPP for that same development. I don't know what to make of this at this point. The listed lat & long would put the location close to Livingston Creek to the north off Hwy 5.
However, based on the map provided in the SWPPP and as best I can tell from the US GS map, Google maps and the diagrams on the SWPPP, the sewage line from this development will have to cross South Sylamore Creek, as the development is off Ledges Road on the north west side of the creek and Holiday Mountain Resort is on the other side to the north east of the development.
This development appears to be on the hillside rising from S. Sylamore Creek, but may still be in the flood plain. I'll have to do more research on this later.
So, it appears that it will be critical that the public be informed as to what is planned so that a comprehensive analysis of the potential risks to S. Sylamore Creek may be made.
The Creekside Villages subdivision is in fact on the opposite side of S. Sylamore Creek from Holiday Mountain Resort. Therefore, if Holiday Mountain Resort obtains the modification to their existing sewage treatment facility, the sewage line from Creekside will have to cross S. Sylamore Creek. The Subdivision, based on the SWPPP which I reviewed would appear to me to be within the flood plain. I will have to obtain the documents which show the extent of the flood plain to absolutely confirm this.
Creekside Viallages is off Ledges Road and right alongside S. Sylamore Creek. The Lat. and Long. on the SW Permit are apparently incorrect which I reported to ADEQ since the permitted locations lat. and long. would not place the development on this endangered stream!
The first part of the Development is for 5 homesites. The SWPPP does indicate containment ponds to be constructed to contain any silt from the construction. The SWPPP indicates that the first houses will be built approximately 20 feet above the normal creek height which I believe will subject these homes to flooding more than the 1 in 100year case.
According to the person I talked to at ADEQ, noone from ADEQ has visited the site, they have no idea of whether any clearing or road construction has started, whether the containment pond constructions are started or in place.
The SWPPP indicates the SW permit is on site, but since the site is posted as no tresspassing/private property, the public has no access to the site to see if the permit has been maintained or if any construction is going on. Since ADEQ has indicated they have not visited the site, aparently this development will essentially take place completely without any monitoring unless: someone reports to ADEQ those times silt was turning the stream brown downstream where the public does have access. And, this reporter would not know necessisarily from where upstream the problem was originating!
I am not necessarily against this development, but when a development is going to lie within a flood plain and the sewage from the development is being planned on crossing a stream which floods to some extent almost every year, then it behooves us to learn as much about the development and the added risks to an already impaired stream.
Jerry Weber
I have talked to Mo Shaffi at ADEQ about the lat/long error in the Creekside Villages SWPPP and mentioned to him that there is no mention in any of the paperwork I could find associated with this development which indicated it was their intent to use the Holiday Mountain Resort treatment plant for disposal of the sewage from homes built in this development. He said he would look into it, but its now been several weeks and I've heard nothing from him or with regard to my request for a public hearing on the Holiday Mountain modification application.
In the mean time, with the latest big storm the flood waters inundated Holiday Mountain Resort, the swinging bridge had water over the deck, and I suspect all of the Creekside Village initial planed homesites were under water since the first building sites are along the creek. The arial photo in the Stone County Leader is not definitive enough to see if the flood waters reached the treatment plant or not. This is now the second time in 26 years that the water has reached the swinging bridge and with more and with more developments having essentially stripped the land of the trees and vegetation which would have slowed the stormwater runoff into our streams, I predict these huge floods will occur more frequently (no longer the 1 in 100 year flood).
Perhaps it is in the publics interest that ADEQ pay particular attention to this proposed development and their as yet unstated plans for sewage disposal from this development since we will certainly have more floods in the future and Mountain View's municipal water supply comes from the White River not far down strem from this planned development. Another consideration is to whether another flood might wash one or more of the homes down the river which could destroy the swinging bridge and or damage the Hwy 14 bridge over S. Sylamore Creek.
I talked to Maryshan (sp?) at ADEQ regarding the status of my request for a public hearing on this application to modify the Holiday Mountain Waste Treatment facility so that it could accommodate the 30+ Creekside Village Development proposed homes. Apparently the information submitted in the application had overstated the existing processing capacity of the facility by a significant amount and ADEQ sent a letter to the engineering firm requesting additional information. As of April, she had received nothing back from them and was going to send another letter telling them that if ADEQ received no more info within some specific time frame (she did not indicate to me just how long she was going to give them) she would return the application and consider the application void. Any future request would have to be accompanied with an entirely new application. Given that the area proposed for the development flooded during the recent floods here in Stone County, it may be that the developer has given up on the development entirely although the stormwater permit is apparently still active. I will continue to monitor both the Holiday Mountain NPDES waste water treatment applications and any movement on the Creekside Villages development.
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