Haverhill, MA Environmental Rules: Erosion Control (2026)

Chapter 219, Stormwater Management, folds erosion and sediment control into the stormwater management permit (SMP) process rather than treating it as a stand-alone chapter. Section 219-8B lists what an SMP application to the Director of the Department of Public Works must include: a completed application form signed by all owners, a list of abutters, the application and review fees, a stormwater management plan, an erosion and sedimentation control plan, and an operation and maintenance plan. The chapter defines an 'erosion and sedimentation control plan' as a plan showing the location and construction detail of the erosion and sediment reduction controls to be used on a construction site.

Design standards for those controls are set by § 219-9, which requires that selection, design and construction of BMPs be consistent with the latest Massachusetts Stormwater Handbook and Stormwater Management Standards, explicitly covering sediment and erosion control alongside peak runoff rates, recharge and pollutant loading. Because the SMP applies to land disturbance of one acre or more (or smaller phases of a larger common plan totaling an acre), a construction project below that acre threshold is not required to file an erosion and sedimentation control plan under this chapter unless it falls under one of the other regulated triggers in § 219-6.

The Director can request additional information, condition approval on specific control measures, or disapprove an application that does not meet these requirements under § 219-8D, and enforcement of an approved plan runs through the same notice-of-violation and penalty structure in §§ 219-16 and 219-19 that governs the rest of Chapter 219.