I met with County Council Chair Elliott Summey, along with some other Mayors the other day. The issue of the Storm Water Utility came up. Staff from the County's Stormwater Utility came by Town Hall later that same day to provide a more detailed explanation. There will likely be a special meeting at Town Hall for a presentation for Council.
The reason for the proposed increase in the storm water utility fee is two-fold. The first is new regulations that require additional testing of the outfalls of storm water pipes and ditches into the marsh. While this sort of testing is usually done by DHEC and associated with determining whether oyster beds are safe for harvest, a new mandate is coming down on local government to require us to regularly check the pollution in runoff. The "pollutant" of greatest concern is coliform bacteria from animal or human waste. The human waste would be from failed septic systems or else leakages in the sewer system. It will all need to be checked some time, but more frequent checks will be needed if there are problem areas. We already have problem areas around James Island. Ignoring this mandate could result in massive fines--like a million dollars. The added testing is going to take up about half of the increase. For us on James Island, this will be about $50,000 per year in total.
The other half of the increase is to pay for drainage improvements. The flood last fall showed that there are weaknesses in the drainage system throughout Charleston County. We found problems here on James Island. Most troubling is that much of our drainage infrastructure (pipes not our ditches) is about 50 years old. That is getting to the end of its useful life. We will need to replace this. The failure of the drainage at Highwood Circle during the flood, was fundamentally caused by aging infrastructure. Further, some work is needed for our ditch system too. For us in the Town of James Island, the added revenue would be about $50,000 per year. This can only be used for drainage projects. I anticipate that the Town will spend more than that each year, using other sources of funds for drainage projects as well. We can use this funding for regular ditch maintenance if we want, tough I anticipate that we will continue to have other sources of funds for that purpose.
The Town will determine what drainage projects in the Town will be funded. The County will use the funds raised from the unincorporated area to fund drainage projects in the unincorporated area. The Chairman of County Council explained that the County needs these additional funds to improve drainage in the unincorporated area, including on James Island. He had two problems with increasing the County tax millage to pay for it. One was that he feared that some of the money would end up being spent on other things. That is the nature of politics. The other is that property taxpayers in the City of Charleston and the Town of Mount Pleasant, who manage their own storm water, would be rightly upset that their taxes are being increased to pay for something that provides no benefit to them.
I don't think setting up our own storm water program is sensible at this time. If we do not, we must apply the storm water fee at least as high as that set by the County. We have no choice but to pay for the added monitoring of storm water runoff into the waterways that surround us. And we can certainly use the added revenue to fund drainage improvements in the Town. And I can understand why Charleston County needs these funds to pay for drainage improvements in the unincorporated area, including here on James Island.
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