Answers for Owners
Property owners often are not engineers, and Erosion and Sediment Control requirements may be confusing. Therefore, we have designed this page to address owner questions.
Erosion & Sediment Control, often called E&S, are structures and other things that are put in place prior to construction so that your soil does not erode during construction. Imagine buying this great piece of property, only to have it ruined when your house is constructed. Not cool! When contractors build they use a plan that tells them what needs done specifically and in what order. That plan has to contain all aspects of what will be done on it. If a contractor errs from a plan, they can be liable to fines, possible prosecution, and the potential for loss of their license. So, what is on that plan is of major importance.
Our job is to make sure your plan has everything needed to protect your property from erosion, as required by the State of Maryland, during construction. MDE (Maryland Department of the Environment) is responsible for making sure the plan is followed. They are the enforcing agency. And they make the rules. As such, they provide a very detailed manual to engineers as to what has to be on your plan for Erosion & Sediment Control. We are experts in that manual, so our job is to make sure your engineer has followed their rules precisely.
It is very important that you understand that we have specific guidelines that we have to follow. Nothing is left up to our discretion.
It Protects You
The purpose behind a Soil Conservation District reviewing construction plans for E&S is to protect the owner. Since owners aren’t generally experts about what is needed, you may not know the requirements of what should be in your plan. Our review protects owners from mistakes made by engineers, and thus liability to owners for citations by MDE. If it is in your plan, the contractor becomes responsible for anything that deviates from the plan.
Here’s a cold, hard truth. If your plan is returned requiring revisions, and your engineer tells you we are “jerking you around”, you may want to contact us to find out the details of what is happening. Plans are generally only returned if the engineer leaves something out or does the plan incorrectly. There may be a simple fix needed, but if your plan is dragging on and on, you need to be proactive and find out what is going on. We don’t just hold plans for long periods of time. Our turn-around is generally only 14 working days unless there are very unusual circumstances or it is a large commercial or solar plan.
Choosing the Right Engineer
Not all engineers are created equal. Some engineers specialize in specific things. And some are better than others.
We can’t recommend a specific engineer, but we can tell you that there are some engineers that we work with that almost never need revisions for their plans and some that require revisions on the majority of their plans.
You need to understand that all of the engineers are following the same MDE manual for what needs to be included in plans. Different plans may require different elements to be addressed, so your plan may not be the same as someone else’s, but engineers designing these types of plans should be familiar with most of the MDE requirements, and they know where to look and who to ask if they don’t know.
Remember that we told you that we follow a set of guidelines for what is needed in the plan. It’s the same guidelines that your engineer should be using. If we are telling your engineer that we need something in a plan that isn’t there, it is because it is part of MDE’s requirements. As a general rule, it should only be a very unusual circumstance that an engineer would contest a revision request. So, if your engineer is telling you that they are contesting a revision, you need to find out from us specifically what is happening.
If you need super silt fence, we can’t just tell you it doesn’t need to be there because your engineer contests it. If there is a stream listed on the GIS, it has to be addressed in your plan…period. It doesn’t matter if the stream is dry part of the year, or if it looks more like a wetland than a stream some of the year. By the way, addressing a wetland is far more complicated and costly than addressing a stream.
When engineers contest a revision, it costs you time. It means it has to go back through the review process again, and then sometimes needs to be referred to someone higher up, which takes even more time. And it is very rare that a revision request is changed because of it because, again, if it is in MDE’s regulations, it has to be in your plan. We can’t change it.
Revision Fees
We charge a revision fee that generally equals half the original fee. Every time there are more revisions needed, there is another revision fee. So, if the changes weren’t addressed the first time, we have to send it back to the engineer again and charge another fee. If what needs addressed is not the plan writer’s fault, we don’t charge that fee.
Different engineers have different arrangements with their clients, and we are not privy to those agreements. But we do want owners to be aware that if there is a revision fee it is because the plan was missing something or done incorrectly, unless YOU make changes that have to be addressed in your plan. In a few cases, Stormwater Management could require a change that makes a plan have to go back through E&S again. We only charge the fee though if it was an omission to the plan or an error with the plan, meaning that there is no fee if the plan writer is not at fault.
Review Time
As a general rule, unless you have a large commercial or solar plan, your review for E&S should be done within 14 working days from time the E&S fee is paid. Within that time frame, we are either going to approve your plan or send it back to your plan writer to be fixed.
Once plans are approved in our office, we send them back to the County. They may have other things they need to do or things they will require you to do, so you should contact the County once the plan goes back to them.
If we ask your engineer for revisions to your plan, your plan writer will need to make those changes and resubmit the plan along with the Revision Review fee. We send the revision request and the revision fee request to your engineer at the same time. Once we receive those revisions, the 14 working days for review begins again once the revision fee is paid.
We have no control over how long it takes your engineer to do the revisions. If your plan has been under E&S review for a long time, it is likely that either your engineer took a long time (or is taking a long time) to make changes to your plan or your engineer is contesting the revisions requested.
Protecting Yourself
Give Us Your Contact Information – The first thing is to make sure we have your contact email here in our office. Some engineers do not include it on the application, which means we can’t contact you to send you a copy of emails that go to your engineer. You can reach us at 301-501-5886. Or email jeannie.frazee@garrettscd.org or seth.metheny@garrettscd.org. You can always request that the County or your engineer send you a copy of the application for a Grading Permit (which is placed at the County). It will show if your contact is listed on the plan.
If Something Seems Off, Contact Us – If your engineer tells you that something needs contested with a revision, or they tell you your plan has been at E&S for a long time, or they tell you that we are requiring unfair additions to your plan, you should contact our office directly. 301-501-5886, seth.metheny@garrettscd.org or jeannie.frazee@garrettscd.org. Find out what is happening for yourself.
Research Engineers – ask other folks that have had a recent construction for comments regarding the engineer. Important questions are: How long was the plan out for E&S?, How many revisions were needed?, Was it difficult to get the plan approved for E&S? Were there multiple fees for revisions that were not due to changes made by the owner? The grading permit also includes Stormwater Management, so make sure your are receiving answers only regarding E&S.