Elgin City Council wants no threat to leaf pickup

The Elgin City Council this year already made it clear it plans to continue the city's leaf pickup program.

So council members are treading carefully around proposed changes to city code they worry could affect it.

But an official with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency says the changes -- which concern storm water and sewer systems -- likely won't impact the city services.

The council Wednesday tabled its discussion of the technical amendments to city code and asked the city attorney to determine whether the IEPA regulations could burden property owners.

City officials say they need to update their code to comply with IEPA permit requirements. The permits are mandatory for all municipalities operating storm water and sewer systems.

Council member Dave Kaptain said that before approving the changes, the council needs to make sure it knows exactly what the new regulations entail.

"We just can't make a law and say we're never going to enforce it," Kaptain said. "You have to be careful. The way the EPA sometimes writes this is very important."

In addition to leaf pickup, Kaptain said, he was concerned the rules could force residents living along Tyler and Poplar creeks to maintain their own stream banks and could require property owners to sweep monthly parking lots that fit more than 10 cars.

"It puts a tremendous burden back on the community," Kaptain said Wednesday.

But the head of the IEPA's permit section for the division of water pollution control says the city shouldn't have much to worry about.

"It is not a requirement on those policies," permit section manager Alan Keller said.

The IEPA does have certain requirements in the permit process, Keller said, but they wouldn't preclude something like Elgin's policy of scooping up leaves that residents rake to the street.

"It gets at the overall issue of keeping the streets relatively clean of any discharge," he said.

Elgin council members, however, still need to make sure their own policy changes aren't more restrictive than the IEPA regulations.

"(City officials) get guidance documents from somebody," Kaptain said. "They need to clear that up. These are pretty big things."