Tennessee Storm Water Debate Continues

The storm water debate between Knoxville, Tenn., and Knox County officials continues. Despite a call for a joint committee of city and county engineers, county commissioners and city council members to resolve the ongoing battle, it is experts who have begun to make headway.

Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale proposed the committee formation last week in response to the city's announced plan to sue over the county's alleged failure to adopted a storm water ordinance at least as stringent as that of the city, as required under the 2001 Urban Growth Boundary Agreement.

The city's initial meeting, scheduled for Friday, has been postponed after both parties' engineers met on their own Tuesday and made "considerable headway," according to Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam. "It's best at this time to leave it in the technical people's hands," he said.

Knoxville's Senior Director of Engineering, Steve King, and Knox County Engineering and Public Works Department Director Bruce Wuethrich both said they are optimistic most of the issues can be resolved with minor tweaks to the ordinance.

"With almost every one of them, Bruce agreed there could be some tweaking of the language to satisfy our concerns," King said Wednesday. "We're just trying to get as many things off the table as possible. We came away feeling like it was worth talking some more."

The oustanding exception seems to be the issue of piping materials, which have been the center of most the publicity surrounding the debate. County commissioners amended the ordinance to allow concrete, corrugated metal and plastic pipes for use in public right-of-ways; taxpayers' dollars fund the maintenance of such infrastrcture. The city's ordinance, on the other hand, requires more expensive reinforced concrete in such cases.

Wuethrich said Wednesday that he might be willing to compromise on the piping materials, allowing only crete and plastic while disallowing metal. "If the real concern here is longevity and water quality, plastic pipe really fits that niche," he said. "I do think plastic is a viable alternative. I don't know that that will resolve the issue, but I think it'll go a long way toward reaching a compromise. We're almost there, we think."

King said both parties may need a couple more weeks of regular meetings to iron out differences. Haslam said the progress has been encouraging but that he hasn't changed his mind about the city's legal intentions.

Knoxville officials presented the county with a required 10-day notice Oct. 2 that said the suit will be filed. "Our plans are still to go forward with the lawsuit," the mayor said. "The county will have 30 days to respond to that. If there's time to talk, we'll keep talking."

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel