No big spending in sight for storm-water system

By Scott Aust, Journal staff | Monday, March 26, 2007

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RAPID CITY — Rapid City taxpayers won’t get an $80 million bill in their mailboxes anytime soon despite recent legislation to allow South Dakota cities to charge storm-water utility fees, city officials say.

That number was bandied about several weeks ago as the amount that the city would need to raise to protect Rapid Creek from runoff and comply with Phase II of federal runoff regulations.

“Any potential cost related to that big number would be like saying ‘50 years from now, we might need 1,000 police in Rapid City, here’s what it would cost,’” Mayor Jim Shaw said last week. “It means nothing because it’s way in the future.”

Dirk Jablonski, public works director, said a distinction needs to be made between the city’s ongoing drainage basin plans and the phase II storm-water management program.

“I think there’s been some confusion between those two,” Jablonski said.

The city’s storm-drainage system has several components, including 140 miles of pipe, 6,000 drain inlets, 100 manholes, more than 500 outlet structures, 19 miles of open channels and many detention and retention ponds.

The city adopted 20 drainage basin

design plans that determine how much water flows from each basin and identify facilities needed to control that water — pipes, ponds and inlet structures.

The plans are used whenever development occurs to predict the impact of development and determine storm-water control needs.

Money for new and rebuilt storm-water drainage infrastructure is budgeted in the city’s capital-improvement program, and the city uses some street division dollars for storm system maintenance.

If money wasn’t a concern and the city built everything it could in all 20 drainage basins, the cost might approach $80 million to $100 million, Jablonski said. But cities don’t do a 50-year build-out of utility systems, he said. They build in increments as needed. Otherwise, he said, “You’d have the perfect drainage system and no reason for it.”

Drainage plans are related to, but not the same as, the runoff-management program mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The city is nearing the end of a five-year National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Phase II permit that requires local governments with storm-water systems serving fewer than 100,000 people to develop a management program to protect water from substances in runoff.

But Jablonski said the provision is not specific, other than requiring the city to establish a program.

The management program requires public education and participation, detection and elimination of illicit discharges, erosion control on construction sites, post-construction storm-water management and pollution prevention in municipal operations.

“All of these issues are either legislative or administrative issues,” Jablonski said. “There are no dollars involved.”

Dion Lowe, a project engineer with the city who oversees permit compliance, said money might be needed in the future to hire additional personnel to administer the program and inspect runoff control measures.

“It depends on what the EPA and DENR require us to do. Right now, it’s just a program, but there could be more strict rules,” he said.

City councilwoman Karen Gundersen Olson said the city is working on storm-water issues in a timely fashion but that much of the work is process rather than building something.

“The way in which you handle storm water is multiform. The chief thing you do is assure that there isn’t runoff from a building site or anyplace there’s open soil,” Gunderson Olson said.

Gunderson Olson said the city has a cordial relationship with the state DENR, and the agency recognizes that the city will take incremental steps for storm-water management. She said individual responsibility and education greatly help to resolve runoff problems.

“I used the example the other day, when you clean out your garage. We need to educate the general public that you don’t flush it down a storm inlet,” she said.

Although no spending is required under the current permit, which expires Dec. 31, Jablonski can’t say for sure what requirements the EPA might impose as part of a new permit.

However, he said, the EPA won’t make the city comply with new permit requirements by Jan. 2. Like the current five-year permit, Jablonski believes that the city will have a reasonable amount of time to meet any new rules.

“I want to make it clear we’re not in a crisis situation. We feel we’re meeting the requirements of the permit. We’re doing as the DENR is requiring in their directives from the EPA,” he said. “We’re not looking at bringing a multi-million expenditure forward to ask for funding.”

Jablonski also doesn’t anticipate anything like a storm-water treatment plant — if such a facility even exists.

“I can’t foretell the future, but I’ve never heard of one,” he said.

A storm-water utility fee could be a revenue source in the future if necessary, but there are no plans or proposals being prepared for such a fee, Jablonski said.

But Alderman Sam Kooiker believes that the city needs to take steps now to set aside funding for the possibility of new requirements.

“There have been a couple of rounds of 2012 that have come and gone. We have the .16 fund and other funding options that we need to look at,” he said. “I think it’s critical that this not be all put on the rate payers. I would ask the council not to simply rely on this new state law to cure all of the funding problems.”