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Accomack County Officials Object to New Storm Water Regulations

Don Rush

The Accomack County Board of Supervisors says the new state changes in the storm water regulations would doom the county and other localities with too much regulation.  

The Board is sending out a letter in which the local officials say that the definition of a measurable storm event is not appropriate for the Eastern Shore. 

The new regulations define it as a ¼ inch of rain within a 24 hour period which the Supervisors say disappears quickly into the ground because of the region’s lack of elevation and highly permeable soils among other factors. 

The Supervisors say the county would find it very difficult to meet.

Instead, the Salisbury Daily Times reports that the Accomack officials say the definition of a storm event east of the Chesapeake Bay should be 3 ¼ inches of rain within a 24 hour period.

The Supervisors also objected to requiring inspections every four days at construction sites noting that current erosion and sediment regulations call for inspections every two weeks.

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.