Does Cedar Rapids need to talk topsoil?

CEDAR RAPIDS - No place should have a greater drive for a local topsoil rule to help with storm runoff than here, seven years after a

multibillion-dollar flood and a year after flash flooding damaged scores of homes and swept a 17-year-old to his death in a storm

drain.

So said Scott Overland, City Planning Commission chairman, reacting this week to the state Environmental Protection Commission's

decision last month that significantly softens the state's near-three-year-old rule on how much topsoil builders must leave on home

sites.

The decision was a victory for homebuilders such as Drew Retz, past president of Home Builders Association of Iowa and vice

president of operations for Jerry's Homes in Cedar Rapids. Retz said he pushed for the change because the state topsoil rule of 2012

was unworkable, unenforceable, and could add thousands of dollars to the price of a house.

'Housing affordability becomes a big issue,” Retz said. 'Homebuilders aren't against water quality and good practices.

'What we are for is housing affordability. And all the rules just drive up home costs.”

The state commission's vote, however, did leave it to local communities to adopt their own topsoil rules if they choose, and Overland, who is running for the City Council in the east-side District 2, said he wants Cedar Rapids to see if it should do just that.

'The way I look at it, runoff is becoming increasingly more important as time goes by,” he said. 'And beings we had a flood, we know more about water, and we can take the lead to find a better way to slow runoff. …

Topsoil is part of the whole situation.”

Joe Griffin, stormwater coordinator for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called on the state to adopt a topsoil rule back in 2012. The idea was that topsoil supports a healthy lawn, reduces storm runoff, helps to improve water quality by filtering out pollutants and requires less chemical treatment, some of which ends up in Iowa's waterways.

Griffin said it was the homebuilders that helped the state write the state's topsoil rule, which went into effect Oct. 1, 2012, as a way to simplify the language the EPA had proposed. The state rule, which has been referred to as the four-inch rule, required builders to keep up to four inches of topsoil on a site if the site had that much before construction started.

If there was less topsoil, only that amount needed to be kept, Griffin said.

He said the new change in the state topsoil rule gives builders great latitude and can be construed to require little from them.

Griffin pointed to one sentence of the new rule: 'Preserving topsoil is not required where the intended function of a specific area of the site dictates that topsoil be disturbed or removed.”

In many residential developments, nearly all the land can be disturbed as the developer re-engineers and grades the site to improve the topography and water flow, he said.

Coralville, which has its own local topsoil rule, has crafted simple language that is close to what the DNR staff proposed back in 2012 when the state topsoil rule was put in place, Griffin said.

Dan Holderness, Coralville city engineer, said Wednesday that Coralville's rule is this: 'Existing topsoil must be preserved and reapplied on site in a uniform, uncompacted manner.”

'The intent of our ordinance is to protect the unsuspecting new homeowner who is unfamiliar with the construction process and the importance of soil quality,” Holderness said. 'Soil quality has great effect on a lot's ability to grow a healthy lawn; support a garden, trees or landscaping; and protect against localized flooding.”

Michael Clarke, Davenport director of public works, and Randy Gehl, spokesman for the city of Dubuque, both provided copies of their detailed local rules that dictate topsoil requirements. Both mention four inches of topsoil.

Jon Durst, Cedar Rapids's sewer superintendent, said the city's stormwater engineering staff supported the state's existing four-inch topsoil rule, now set aside, as the state's Environmental Protection Commission was studying the request earlier this year by homebuilders to modify the rule.

'We felt that having four inches of topsoil was a benefit to residents to have on their lots,” Durst said. 'It provides a better base matrix for their grass, it allows more stormwater to be infiltrated, and it has a lot of water quality and other benefits.

'So we felt like we would want to keep that.”

Durst said many people who buy homes that are part of developments often don't know or ask about topsoil.

'A lot of times, with sewers and everything else, if it's out of sight, it's out of mind,” he said.

Cedar Rapids City Council Member Scott Olson, chairman of the council's Infrastructure Committee, has led the council effort since the flash flooding of 2014 to identify some $25 million in improvements the city needs to undertake to its sewer system to reduce the impact of flash flooding.

The committee has not discussed topsoil standards, he said.

At the same time, Olson said his own condominium complex on the west side of Cedar Rapids has had to pay to aerate the soil on the grounds over the years because the site is largely clay and has trouble keeping a healthy lawn.

'So I'm a fan of the four-inch topsoil rule,” Olson said.

Cedar Rapids has discussed stormwater management. The city, for example, has trumpeted a grant it helped secure to improve farm runoff in the Cedar River watershed north of the city, and Mayor Ron Corbett has been on a tractor at The Eastern Iowa Airport to plant grasses to help control runoff there.

However, Carole Teator, chairwoman of the city's Stormwater Commission and program manager with Trees Forever, said the city could do more.

Teator said she submitted comments earlier this year to the state Environmental Protection Commission, asking it to retain the four-inch topsoil rule. And Mike Dryden, a city commission member and an engineer with Ament Design, also said he supports the four-inch rule on sites that have four inches of topsoil.

At the same time, Teator and Dryden said they wonder why the city commission's recommendations on other stormwater practices have not moved ahead for discussion by the City Council. Teator said the commission only has three of its five seats currently filled.

In the world of topsoil, the DNR's Griffin said there is a stark contrast between commercial development and residential development. In commercial developments, developers often continue to own the property and so want it to have an attractive lawn that does not cost a lot to maintain. Likewise, cities insist on a lot of topsoil on their own building projects to control long-term maintenance costs, he said.

Griffin said he suspects that the statewide rule change on topsoil has had an unanticipated benefit in that it has prompted prospective homebuyers to start asking about topsoil and soil quality as they figure out what they will buy and not buy.

'I get a lot of calls about it,” he said.