| 1/7/2010 3:55:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Council approves wetland ordinance updates
Derrick Knutson
Review staff
The Maplewood City Council approved updates to the city's wetland ordinance by a 3-2 vote last month.
Council members Will Rossbach, Kathy Juenemann and John Nephew voted to approve the ordinance, while outgoing council member Erik Hjelle and Mayor Diana Longrie dissented.
City staff and resident Sharon Sandeen, who used to work for the California Legislature and has over 30 years of experience drafting legal documents, had been working for months on the updates. A need to revisit the ordinance and make changes was identified because city officials said the ordinance needed to be more succinct and understandable from a layman's perspective.
Sandeen and city staff had differing opinions about portions of the ordinance, but concessions were made before the council passed it.
Sandeen said she would have liked the ordinance to have a section that provides incentives for residents implementing "best management practices," such as using rain barrels or constructing rain gardens to help reduce the flow of runoff into area wetlands.
Council member Erik Hjelle also said he'd like city staff to look into the issue.
Community Development and Parks Department Director DuWayne Konewko addressed Sandeen and Hjelle's concerns.
"At this point we didn't feel we could assemble that and make it work until we had a better opportunity to do some research on exactly what that program would entail, how that program would work, how the city would administer that program and how we would keep track of that," Konewko said.
Council member John Nephew said he was not in favor of the new ordinance having a section addressing best management practices because he couldn't see how the specifics of it could be economically implemented.
Public weighs in on wetlands
Resident Dave Schilling was the first to take the podium to comment about the ordinance, and Juenemann addressed his concern before he could even vocalize what it was.
She told Schilling the city does not use phosphorous in its fertilizers, which she said is one of the main polluting components that leads to unwanted pond vegetation.
Schilling had brought up the issue earlier in the meeting.
Resident Ralph Sletten said he was speaking in opposition to the way drafting a new ordinance was handled. His main concern was that he said a city wetland buffer on his property was the result of a "man-made" wetland, and the city was taking his land.
His daughter, resident Elizabeth Sletten, objected for the same reasons as her father, and added that many residents do not have sufficient funds to pay for best management practices, such as rain gardens, even if the city gives them some monetary aid. The city never actually ended up having a section addressing best management practices included in the ordinance.
Some residents were concerned that Maplewood has different buffers - how far from a wetland a homeowner can build, mow or fertilize from - than the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District.
Ginny Yingling, the chair of Maplewood's Environmental and Natural Resources Commission, said the watershed district imposes minimum buffers for water quality purposes, but the city takes into account wildlife habitat as well, so its buffers around wetlands are deeper than the watershed's.
Council member Will Rossbach said a lot of compromises had to be made when drafting the new ordinance, and it lost some of its "teeth" in the process, but that's bound to happen when changing ordinances.
Sandeen said she was in favor of getting an ordinance passed, but hoped that the city would be willing to make changes in the future if need be.
"I think this ordinance is a good, reasonable compromise between two competing points of view," she said. "I think it achieves the goals of the city while still respecting the interest of the homeowners."
Derrick Knutson can be reached at dknutson@lillienews.com or at (651) 748-7825.
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