Stormwater runoff is everyone’s burden

October 18th, 2009

Heavy rains can quickly overburden our storm water system flooding streets and homes. A storm water fee is assessed on each water bill according to the size of the meter. According to this article by the Muskogee Phoenix, the current fees bring in $380,000/year with residents paying $280,000 of that.

Under the proposed fee revisions, businesses will now start paying for the amount of impervious surface (roofs, parking lots, sidewalks, etc.) at $1/unit. A unit is 2650 sq. feet of surface. This sounds like a much more equitable way of assessing the fee than the water meter size, since the amount of water a business uses in no way correlates to the amount of runoff they will have in a storm.

There will also be exemptions available to those businesses that manage their own storm water. Schools and churches have also asked for exemptions. I don’t think the fee schedule needs to be complicated with a bunch of exemptions, but I do think the fee schedule needs to take some things into account for schools, at least.

Muskogee Public Schools is struggling to meet expenses due to the way the feds and the state like to play with education funding. We will be in a much worse position if the schools have to cut academics to pay for storm water management. I think temporary exemptions, or discounts, should be available to our public schools.

Boulevard Christian Church, according to the Phoenix, built retention ponds and manage the runoff from their property and that of their neighbors. I’m not in favor of exempting churches simply because they are a church, but when a business or church does not contribute to the storm water runoff problem, they should be rewarded with an exemption.

Muskogee needs this fee, there is no doubt of that, but the council needs to recognize some economic factors of entities that depend on public funding. If they have to pay this fee, they will have to cut services.