STORMWATER STRAIN: Shifting currents

In the debate over how to pay for Waynesboro’s stormwater management program, much of the focus has centered on what effect it would have on big businesses — particularly Invista, which has its own, long-established stormwater program.
It’s what Councilman Frank Lucente said caused him to change his mind to support paying for stormwater through the general fund, rather than creating a stormwater utility with accompanying fees.
“I think we can do the whole thing with what we’ve got,” Lucente said. “I see [the City Council] getting in there and getting involved with it.”
However, Councilwoman Lorie Smith, along with Vice Mayor Nancy Dowdy and several council candidates, said a stormwater utility with a credit program was — and still is — the way to pay for the program, citing a dedicated funding stream and the ability to get more work done.
At issue with fees was how much of the burden should be shared by businesses. Smith favored a program that would have had businesses pay fees but receive credits based on the quality of their stormwater systems.
Invista officials backed the general fund option — as did Lucente and ally Bruce Allen, winning them the endorsement of the company workers’ union in the election. But the fibers maker expected stormwater credits would have greatly reduced or eliminated its fees.
Invista operates a $6.4 million stormwater system that officials said keeps plant runoff from feeding into the city network. Because Invista runoff flows directly into the South River rather than into the public system, linking the plant to city stormwater woes is difficult.
Smith’s biggest disappointment with using money from the general fund instead of fees is one she feared when the idea was initially broached: a dramatic reduction in stormwater funding. Initially ticketed at $1.2 million last year, the stormwater budget was slashed to just 42 percent of that — $585,000 — after the council voted against fees and pulled money from the general fund.
“I think it is a step in the right direction,” Smith said. “I think council is going to have to define what the 42 percent is going to look like.”
She said the city will ultimately have to revisit the idea of a utility, something Lucente has previously acknowledged.
In the interim, Lucente said the general fund program is ready to go and said prison labor can help do a lot of the cleanup work.
“Most of the maintenance [cost] is labor,” Lucente said.
He said prison crews, along with city workers, can clean out the drains, ponds, boxes and drain pipes.
“Get it so that the water will flow,” Lucente said.
Counting money set aside for the program, and two 2007 bonds, the city will have about $8 million to spend on stormwater.
Besides the $6.2 million the city will spend on a list of eight top-priority stormwater projects, the city has $550,000 for stormwater equipment and an additional $700,000 to go for stormwater work through an August 2007 bond issue. The city has gone to market on the August bond, and expects to go to market soon on the other bond
Smith said she fought for the $700,000 after the council was unable to get a supermajority — or four of five votes — for the west-end fire station.
City Public Works Director Brian McReynolds said a good stormwater program is about having specific plans for annual maintenance and larger capital projects — something the city now has.
He said regulation plays a role in solving the problem, as well as what levels of stormwater retention the city will ask of developers. He said a number of public and private facilities need to be maintained.
“And a lot of it’s about education,” McReynolds said. “You can’t just go into it and hit just one specific area, and so we’ve identified all those areas and what level we’re going to move forward on.”
Lucente said he has observed crews working on stormwater already, and expects additional projects can be completed, though not all at once.
“We’ll knock two or three or four out a year, hopefully,” Lucente said. “We’ve got the ability to do that. We’ll see how the economy goes.”
McReynolds said the city soon will request bid proposals on seven stormwater projects and hire staff. Smith said she hopes the city soon will hire a stormwater manager.
“That’s been my goal, to make [stormwater] a constant initiative,” McReynolds said. “And that’s the way you’ll begin to solve the process of stormwater. You have to stabilize that process.”
“Some of it will be, I think, behind the scenes, but you’ll see work done in each one of these areas — each one of the areas that specified within the stormwater management program,” McReynolds said.
The work will include clearing and channel restoration along with design for the Chatham Road project, he said.
Smith said there will be “tangible” improvement, but hopes in the meantime that the city will do more research into a credit system for a possible utility fund. She also hopes to “put some speed” in getting another 18 stormwater projects addressed.
McReynolds said the city would — and has — been looking at water quality grants.
“We’ll absolutely continue to try to get grants for the projects that are defined,” McReynolds said.
It’s not just money that will be needed to solve the problem, but also a change of behavior, according to city and state officials.
“The big issue, I think, with the regulatory side, is identifying that level that you want to make the standard for ponds coming into the city,” McReynolds said.
That level, he said, would require that 10 years after a development is opened, runoff be released at a rate equivalent to or less than runoff two years before construction. After 25 years, the requirement would be that the runoff rate be the same or less than the rate 10 years before construction.
“All that is is you’re just sizing how big the opening is going to be that you’re allowing downstream,” McReynolds said.
He said the city has to look for opportunities to upgrade existing facilities to meet current regulations — as it did with a retention pond behind Jim Snead Ford on West Main Street.
Jim Echols, resident manager for the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, said that in the 1990s, population in Chesapeake Bay watershed areas — including Waynesboro — grew just eight percent, but impervious surfaces grew by 41 percent.
“That has a huge impact on streams, on water quality, on downstream properties, and of course, the water quality from the streams, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay,” Echols said. “But even if we ignore the bay — here the bay is a long way away — it has huge local impacts. So part of the challenge facing people in stormwater and erosion and sediment control is to address these changes.”
For localities and businesses battling stormwater woes, it’s been, at times, a “painful ride,” Echols said.
Regulations, he said, have been around for a long time, but now there’s stepped-up enforcement and more attention paid to best management practices.
Many localities are also turning to low impact development, or LID, as a way to reduce stormwater costs.
According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, LID principles include preserving natural landscape and reducing impervious space — hard surfaces that do not allow water to seep into the ground — to use stormwater as a resource instead of waste. Some examples of LID practices include bioretention, permeable pavements, rain barrels, rain gardens and vegetative rooftops.
By using LID techniques, the EPA says “water can be managed in a way that reduces the impact of built areas and promotes the natural movement of water within an ecosystem or watershed.”
EPA studies show that low impact development can reduce costs and improve environmental quality — most savings, it said, range from 15 to 80 percent.
“We all have to rethink how we do things,” Echols said.