permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>]

Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:

> The answer to your question about the LA is that they have absolutely no 
> right, legal or otherwise
> to chalenge your right to implement your permaculture designs for your 
> customers.
> The city, county, state and federal government _may_ have regulations and 
> laws that you will
> be expected to be knowledgeable about and to abide by. Locally these are 
> planning rules such as setback requirements,
> tree removal, etc. The county and state may have civil engineering rules that 
> may affect your designs and construction.
> Such things as site preparation that might cause erosion, site drainage after construction is finished, excavating water 
> impoundments (leaching into the water table would be an issue and would affect the pond depth and may require a 
> consultation with them to determine acceptable locations on site and whether any lining material would need to be 
> applied). These are all things you probably already expect and plan to address in your designs so its a moot point.
> Knowing the rules created by all the affected agencies would be a good idea. A call to your county planning and 
> environmental departments would be useful, same to state departments. If you're building a water impoundment they will 
> want to know about it to make sure you do it right. Issues are leaching into ground water, if any, the slope on the 
> sides of the pond and setback from property lines; if a dam is to be built it must meet state specs to avoid any 
> potential future disasters; overflow must meet specs as it will run into the local watershed and possibly onto a 
> neighbor's land. Attention must be paid to the wishes of neighbors to avoid any lawsuits; if their trees are afffected
> by your constuction you need to make sure it is in a neutral or positive way.

The local, county, state or federal regulatory agencies that apply to the implementation of your permaculture designs 
may require that you hire a Civil Engineer to prepare designs with specifications for certain critical parts of your job
and construction of those features may be subject to county or state inspection. Footings for structures are one of 
those things. Dam design for ater impoundments may be another. There is no reason why you'd have to be a LA or CE 
yourself to design such things when you can sub out that part of the job, hire specialists to do part or all of the 
constuction and finally have it inspected.

LL