Definitions of terminology used in this chapter shall be as follows:
(a) "Base Flood Elevation (BFE)" means the elevation delineating the level of flooding resulting from the 100-year frequency flood discharge.
(b) "Building" means a structure that is principally above ground and is enclosed by walls and a roof. The term includes a gas or liquid storage tank, a manufactured home, carport, mobile home or a prefabricated building. This term also includes recreational vehicles and recreational vehicles to be installed on a site for more than 180 days.
(c) “Calhoun County Enforcing Area” (CCEA) means the county agency or a conservation district designated by a county board of commissioners under MCL 324.9105.
(d) “City” means the City of Battle Creek, including staff and elected officials.
(e) “Compensatory storage” means an excavated, hydraulically equivalent volume of storage used to offset the loss of natural flood storage capacity when artificial fill or structures are placed within a floodplain.
(f) “Construction” means any on-site activity that will result in the creation of a new stormwater management system, including the building, assembling, expansion, modification, or alteration of the existing contours of the property; the erection of buildings or other structures, or any part thereof, or land clearing.
(g) “Control device” means the element of a discharge structure that allows the gradual release of water under controlled conditions, sometimes referred to as bleed-down.
(h) “Control elevation” means the lowest elevation at which water can be released through the control device.
(i) “Control structure” means a structure designed to control the rate of flow that passes through the structure, given a specific upstream and downstream water surface elevation.
(j) “Director” means the Department of Public Works Director and the Director's designees.
(k) “Detention” means the collection and temporary storage of stormwater in such a manner as to provide treatment through physical, chemical, or biological processes with subsequent gradual release of the stormwater.
(l) “Development” means any of the following:
(1) Construction, installation, alteration, demolition, or removal of a structure impervious to surface stormwater management system; or
(2) Clearing, scraping, grubbing or otherwise removing or killing the vegetation of a site; or
(3) Adding, removing, exposing, excavating, leveling, grading, digging, dumping, or otherwise disturbing the soil or rock of a site in a manner that is contrary to the requirements of this chapter.
(m) “Discharge structure” means a structural device usually constructed of a material such as concrete, metal or timber through which water from a stormwater management system is discharged from a site to a receiving water.
(n) “Drain” means a channel, natural depression, slough, stream, creek or pipe in which storm runoff and floodwater can flow. This includes systems installed to carry urban storm runoff.
(o) “Drainage area” means the entire upstream land area from which stormwater runoff drains to a particular location. For a particular development, the drainage area shall include any upstream (offsite) areas that drain to and through the development. (p) “Dry detention” means water storage with the bottom elevation at least one foot above the control elevation. Sumps, swales, and other minor features may be at a lower elevation.
(q) “Elevation” means the height in feet above mean sea level according to the National Geodetic Vertical Datum.
(r) “Engineer” means a professional engineer registered in Michigan who is competent in the fields of hydrology and stormwater management.
(s) “FEMA” means the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its regulations.
(t) “Floodplain (regulatory)” means for a given flood event, that area of land adjoining a continuous watercourse that has been covered temporarily by water. The term floodplain includes all physical floodplains whether or not they have been officially mapped by FEMA.
(1) “Riverine floodplains” are those areas contiguous to a lake, pond, or stream whose elevation is greater than the normal water pool elevation but equal to or lower than the projected 100-year flood elevation.
(2) “Non-riverine floodplains” are depressional storage areas not associated with a stream system which surrounding lands drain causing periodic inundation by storm waters. In certain cases, the floodplain may also be known as the Special Flood Hazard Area (SAHA).
(u) “Flood Protection Elevation (FBE)” means the elevation of the base flood or 100-year frequency flood plus a minimum 1 foot of freeboard at any given location in the Special Flood Hazard Area (SAHA).
(v) “Floodway (regulatory)” means the channel, including ostreum lakes, and that portion of the flood plain adjacent to a stream or watercourse as designated by the FDMA flood plain maps, which is needed to store and convey the existing and anticipated future 100-year frequency flood discharge with no more than a 1 foot increase in stage due to the loss of flood conveyance or storage.
(w) “Historic discharge or volume” means the peak rate or volume at which storm water runoff leaves a parcel of land in an undisturbed, natural site condition by gravity, or the legally allowable discharge at the time of permit approval.
(x) “Impervious surface” means a surface that prevents the infiltration of water into the ground such as all roofs, streets, sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, and compacted soils and gravel.
(y) “Overflow elevation” means the design elevation of a discharge structure at which or below which, water is contained behind the structure except for that which leaks out or bleeds out through a control device down to the control elevation.
(z) “Retention” means the prevention of or to prevent the discharge of a given volume of storm water runoff into surface waters by complete on-site storage.
(aa) “Soil conservation plan” means a document prepared or approved by the Calhoun County Enforcing Area that outlines a system of management practices to control storm water and soil erosion, reduce sediment loss, or protect receiving water quality on a specific parcel of property.
(bb) “Special Flood Hazard Area (SAHA)” means any base flood area subject to flooding from a river, creek, stream, or any other identified channel or pending and shown on a Flood Hazard Boundary Map or Flood Insurance Rate Map as Zone A, A, A1-30, E, A99, AH, VO, V30, VE, V, M, or E.
(cc) “Stormwater” means water resulting from precipitation, including without limitation rain, snow, and snowmelt. Also referred to as “runoff”.
(dd) “Stormwater management plan” means ordinances, orders, rules, regulations, and other mechanisms that provide for the management of stormwater to prevent flooding, improving water quality and ensuring restoration and/or protection of surface waters.
(ee) “Stormwater management system” means any structure, feature, or appurtenance subject to the TRM, or rule promulgated pursuant to the TRM, that is designed to collect, detain, retain, treat, or convey stormwater runoff, including without limitation buffer strips, swales, gutters, catch basins, closed conduits, detention systems, pretreatment systems, wetlands, pavement, unpaved surfaces, structures, watercourses, or surface waters, whether public or private.
(ff) “Structure” means the results of a man-made change to the land constructed on or below the ground, including the construction, reconstruction or placement of a building or any addition to a building; installing a manufactured home on a site; preparing a site for a manufactured home or installing a recreational vehicle on a site for more than 180 days; and includes retaining walls, tanks and manholes.
(gg) “Surface water” means a body of water, including without limitation seasonal and intermittent waters, in which the surface of the water is exposed to the atmosphere, including without limitation lakes, open detention basins, forebays, watercourses, bioretention areas, retention basins, wetlands, and impoundments.
(hh) “Swale” means a man-made trench that:
(1) Has a top depth-to-width ratio of the cross-section equal to or greater than 1:6, or side slopes equal to or greater than 3 feet vertical to 1 foot horizontal; and
(2) Contains contiguous areas of standing or flowing water only following a rainfall event; and
(3) Is planted with or has stabilized vegetation suitable for soil stabilization, surface water treatment, and nutrient uptake; and
(4) Is designed to take into account the soil irritability, soil percolation, slope, slope length, and drainage area so as to prevent erosion and reduce pollutant concentration of any discharge.
(ii) “Watershed area” means any drainage area contributing surface and storm water runoff to the City storm water management system.
(jj) “Wet detention” means water storage with the bottom elevation one foot lower than the control elevation of the system.
(kk) “Water course” means a natural or artificial channel for flowing water.
(Ord. 11-01. Passed 8-21-01; Ord. 04-08. Passed 3-18-08; Ord. 16-2019. Passed 12-17-19.)