Lake County, IN Environmental Rules: Stormwater Management (2026)

Chapter 52 of the county code, titled Stormwater Management and Sediment Control, contains a single operative section. 01 incorporates the county's separately adopted stormwater and clean water regulations wholesale, "as if appearing in total," and directs that two copies be kept on file at the Lake County Health Department for anyone to inspect. This adoption-by-reference approach has been used three times: the county first adopted stormwater and clean water regulations in 2006 under Ordinance 1274A, revised them in 2013 under Ordinance 1365C, and readopted the current 2024 version under Ordinance 1500A.

Because the substantive engineering and permitting standards live in that separately filed document rather than in the printed code, anyone needing the specific technical requirements (drainage calculations, detention criteria, inspection triggers, and similar) has to request the filed copy from the Health Department rather than relying on the county code text alone. The chapter applies only within the unincorporated county; Gary, Hammond, Crown Point, and Lake County's other incorporated cities and towns administer their own separate stormwater programs. 99, which applies to any code violation lacking a specific penalty section.