Escambia County commissioners on Feb. 29 postponed a public hearing on proposed changes to county stormwater design standards after engineers, builders and community members disagreed about whether to adopt NOAA Atlas 14 rainfall tables and a new 6-inch freeboard requirement for ponds.

The proposed ordinance, developed by county staff and a technical advisory committee (PAC), would update the county esign manual to use the most recent rainfall data and add a 6-inch freeboard safety margin and a required pond drawdown/recovery requirement. County engineering staff and HDR Engineering presented model runs showing larger pond volumes under the NOAA Atlas 14 numbers; builders and developers warned the changes would raise development costs and reduce lot counts.

The changes matter because they would change how much stormwater storage new subdivisions and retrofit projects must provide, affecting pond size, lot yield and construction costs. HDRonsultant Alan Vincent told the board his team ran about 18 scenarios and found the county esign baseline of a 100-year, 24-hour event (the IDF curves previously used) averaged about 13.4 inches, while Atlas 14 output at several Escambia locations was roughly 16.2 inches. Using Atlas 14 would increase pond volumes, Vincent said: dry-pond volumes rose roughly 8–10% and wet-pond volumes roughly 6–15% in the scenarios his team modeled. Closed-basin or dry-basins showed larger changes (about 20–25%), and longer design durations such as 72-hour or 10-day recovery requirements could raise required volumes by several tens of percent.

County staff said the PAC recommended adopting the latest available data and the 6-inch freeboard as safety factors. Joy (county engineer) told commissioners the PAC selected a 10-day recovery requirement (county standard) while noting FDOT uses longer durations; staff said they can require higher standards in specific retrofit or problem areas.

Opponents questioned the technical basis and economic effect. Speakers from the Home Builders Association of West Florida, including Austin Tenpenny (president), Tom Hammond (Hammond Engineering, engineer liaison to the association) and Steve Moorehead (general counsel), urged caution. Hammond said local projects built to current IDF-based standards have not shown widespread failures and argued the county lacked on-the-ground examples proving the older curves were inadequate. Tenpenny and Moorehead warned a blanket, countywide adoption of Atlas 14 could increase pond sizes, reduce lot counts and raise housing costs during an affordability squeeze.

Consulting and former county engineers who testified countered that NOAA Atlas 14 incorporates far more stations and longer records and reflects the best available science. Engineer and longtime local stormwater practitioner Chris Curb urged adopting higher design standards, saying more intense short-duration storms are now common and that a 6-inch freeboard and stronger design criteria would reduce future flood liability.

Commissioners and staff also discussed a separate, pending state-level water-quality rule (a nutrient-based treatment standard) that staff said could require still larger treatment volumes if adopted; the governor had given a one-year grace period on parts of that rule. Several commissioners said it would be prudent to wait for state action, additional cost estimates and more stakeholder work before changing county code.

After discussion, the board voted 5–0 to remove the 9:15 a.m. public hearing from the Feb. 29 agenda and to revisit the ordinance at a later date (board members discussed returning in the summer). Commissioners directed staff to continue stakeholder discussions, to prepare cost/benefit information (including the potential for underground filtration or other alternatives raised during the hearing) and to return with recommendations.

No ordinance was adopted and no formal vote on the specific code language was taken. Commissioners and staff emphasized that many local flooding problems are in older neighborhoods and that retrofit projects will remain a priority for county capital programs.

The county engineering division and the stakeholder PAC will continue revisions and promised to present additional analyses and proposed language to the board before any formal adoption vote.