CHESAPEAKE — Updating the EPA requirements for the Storm Water Management Plan for parts of Lawrence County was the focus of the first meeting of the newly formed Storm Water Task Force.

The plan was originally mandated in 2003 by the EPA, but recent changes require a review and changes on it.

The task force is made up of a township trustee from Union, Rome, Fayette and Perry, David Lynd, the Lawrence County engineer, Pat Leighty, South Point village administrator, Bernard Conwell of the Concerned Citizens of Burlington and Lawrence County Commissioner Les Boggs.

“We want to make sure we stay on top of it and stay ahead of the game,” Carrie Yaniko, urban education specialist for the Lawrence Soil and Water Conservation District, told the group that met Tuesday evening at the Chesapeake branch of the Briggs Lawrence Library.

Ohio law requires that the county submit a storm water management plan designed to cut back as much as possible on pollutants in order to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act.

The advisory task force is to oversee the plan that covers about one-eighth of the county along the Ohio River. Chesapeake, South Point and Proctorville are exempted from this particular plan.

Within the plan are six minimum control measures whose goal is to reduce pollutants.

“There is to be some type of group that discusses what is in the plan and things that are coming from it,” Yaniko said.

While part of the measures deal with education and public outreach, one of the most significant measures concerns illicit discharge detection and elimination.

“We have to map all of the storm drains and sewer systems and home septic treatment systems,” she said.

Right now Yaniko has been going throughout the designated areas for the plan with a GPS to find those systems locations.

She is hoping to work with Lynd’s office to come up with a comprehensive map.

This map must be updated at least once a year. The task force will also be responsible for coming up with a resolution to prohibit such discharges and penalties.

Yaniko asked the task force to review the measures and come up with suggestions for its next meeting in June.

Attending Tuesday’s meeting were Rome Township Trustee Dean Cooper, Fayette Township Trustee Perry Brock, Bernard Conwell, David Lynd and Perry Township Trustee Jeff Joseph. David Marcum of Chesapeake also attended.