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The following are draft chapters of the revised Virginia Stormwater Management Handbook that has been developed to provide additional guidance to accompany the proposed regulations. We encourage public comment and feedback on these drafts. Comments on the handbook should be directed to:

Mr. Scott Crafton
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
203 Governor Street, Suite 206
Richmond, Virginia 23219

Chapters that are provided for public comment and feedback are as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter describes what is new in this handbook, covers how to use the handbook and contains a glossary of terms.

Chapter 2: Stormwater Management Law and Regulations
This chapter provides an explanation of the Law and Regulations, including the text of each in separate Appendices.

Chapter 3: Qualifying Stormwater Management Programs
This chapter provides an explanation of what must be included in a local ordinance and program structure in order for the program to be considered a “Qualifying” local SWM program.

Chapter 4: Why Stormwater Matters
This chapter discusses the various impacts of stormwater on our culture and environment, illustrating why careful management is needed. There is a new emphasis on treating stormwater as a resource and not merely a problem to be moved on downstream as quickly as possible.

Chapter 5: Managing Stormwater
This chapter discusses how to manage stormwater comprehensively and with optimum cost-effectiveness.

Chapter 6: Site Planning Considerations
This chapter discusses environmental site design techniques that minimize the impacts of stormwater runoff while still achieving the developer’s goals. There is a new emphasis on planning for stormwater management early in the site design process, rather than waiting until after site layout decisions have been finalized, which may make managing stormwater more difficult and expensive.

Chapter 7: Stormwater Control Measure Upgrades and Retrofits
This chapter discusses the concept of retrofitting previously developed sites and the most appropriate alternatives for specific situations.

Chapter 8: Stormwater Control Measure Overview and Selection
This chapter discusses various kinds of stormwater control measures, the most effective sequencing of measures, and criteria for use in selecting control measures for specific sites.

Chapter 9: Inspection and Maintenance
This chapter discusses inspection and on-going maintenance of stormwater control measures. Appendices provide examples of BMP maintenance agreements, inspection checklists, and hints at how to design control measures to minimize maintenance problems.

Chapter 10: Uniform Sizing Criteria
This chapter discusses the various criteria that apply to sizing of stormwater control measures, including runoff volume reduction, water quality treatment, receiving stream channel protection, and flood protection.

Chapter 11: Hydrologic Methods
This chapter will be essentially the same as Chapter 4 in the current handbook. However, the text will be modified to reflect the new regulatory criteria. Rainfall depth tables will also be changed to reflect the new NOAA Atlas 14 Rainfall charts and tables, which can be accessed at the following URL: http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/lr2f.shtml

Chapter 12: Runoff Reduction Methodology and Energy Balance
This chapter explains the new Runoff Reduction Methodology and the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet tool that has been developed to facilitate use of the method. The chapter also explains the new Energy Balance approach to stream channel protection.

Chapter 13: Hydraulic Methods
This chapter will be essentially the same as Chapter 5 in the current handbook. However, the text will be modified to reflect the new regulatory criteria (e.g., 2-year channel protection and design storm changes to the 1-year storm; the 0.5-inch “Water Quality Volume” changes to the Treatment Volume of the 1-inch rainfall event; etc.).

Chapter 14: Example Problems
This will be updated as with chapters 11 and 13.

To learn more about laws and code governing DCR, follow this link to the Division of Legislative Service's site. Search the site using keywords and phrases.

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