McHenry County Protects Waterways and Wetlands

In an effort to address burgeoning development, reduce damaging floods, and save wetlands in peril, the McHenry County Board passed major new stormwater regulations in January. The new stormwater management ordinance importantly gives the county control over previously unprotected isolated wetlands.

Under the provisions of the new ordinance, which will go into effect over the next year, the county will have the ability to regulate any development that would create more than 5,000 square feet of impervious surface, and to require the creation of up to five new wetland acres for each one that is destroyed. This includes the isolated wetlands (those not connected to a U.S. waterway) that a 2001 Supreme Court ruling removed from the control of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Developers that do obtain permits to build on these lands will have to satisfy a "laundry list" of other requirements as well, including retention ponds, buffer zones, and other measures to better handle runoff, says McHenry County Staff Engineer Adam Boecher.

The county's only previous regulation was a zoning ordinance that oversaw only a few types of commercial and residential development. The result of this new ordinance, according to Boecher, is that "the environmentally sensitive areas of our county will be better protected than in the past. By doing that, by definition, we will enhance water quality and quality of the habitat."

Other Illinois counties in Chicago Wilderness, including DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, and Will, have passed similar ordinances throughout the 1990s. Each cooperates with a slightly different roster of organizations and has different requirements for vegetative buffers around bodies of water. Some base their "mitigation ratios" on the quality of the wetland that may be compromised. In Kenosha County, Wisconsin, wetland areas have been zoned as "conservancy districts" and, under state law, cannot be filled. No such state protection yet exists in Indiana, thus both Lake and Porter Counties rely on the Army Corps.

— Elizabeth Riotto