Smyrna, TN Environmental Rules: Stormwater Management (2026)

Chapter 6 of Title 14, the Stormwater Management Ordinance, covers all properties within the corporate limits of the Town of Smyrna, Tennessee. The stormwater management coordinator or designee administers it, and the Public Works Director or Town Engineer holds authority to administer and enforce it, including issuing civil penalties. Applicants for a land disturbance permit pay a fee set in the fee schedule adopted as part of the budget ordinance.

Section 14-604 applies to site plan applications, subdivision applications, and grading permit applications. Its standards reach new development and redevelopment of one acre or more, and a project under one acre can be pulled in if the stormwater entity determines its discharge is causing or likely to contribute to a violation of a state water quality standard, or if the use is defined as a hotspot land use. Treatment is sized to a 1-year, 24-hour storm, and structural controls must reach an overall treatment efficiency of 80% TSS removal. The treatment volume depends on the control: the first 1 inch of the design storm for infiltration, evaporation, transpiration, or reuse, the first 1.5 inches for biologically active filtration with an underdrain, and the first 2.5 inches or the first 75% of the design storm, whichever is less, for sand or gravel filtration and ponds.

Section 14-605(4) speaks to individual build lots. Storm gutters, downspouts, sump pumps, and other outlets must be piped or channeled into a conveyance that adequately drains the property, and runoff cannot be directed onto a neighboring lot so that it flows outside the drainage easement. Owners maintain the stormwater facilities on their property, and if a facility becomes a danger to public safety or public health, the responsible party has 30 calendar days after written notice to repair it before Public Works acts and charges the cost. Section 14-606 prohibits non-stormwater discharges to the storm sewer, with listed exceptions, and names car wash wastewater, improper oil disposal, and laundry wastewater among the prohibited discharges. Detention ponds are inspected annually under § 14-612.