Storm Water Fee
1.Introduction
Stormwater is water that originates during precipitation events and snow/ice melt, if it hasn’t infiltrated into soil, then runoff happens, which could lead to urban waterlogging and waste of water resource. Since humans began living in concentrated village or urban settings, stormwater runoff has been an issue. During thousands of years, humankind didn’t really take action to deal with storm water, but within the high speed urbanization during modern time, impervious surface-especially in urban area-has increased dramatically, which made storm water management a problem that can’t be ignored anymore.
In 1972, Clean Water Act started to take effect, and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System is authorized by EPA in the same year. Cities had been requested to put effort in stormwater management. After that, a lot of US cities started to charge stormwater utility fee, in order to build and maintain stormwater management facilities, thereby to help solving a series of problems that stormwater can lead to. Each city has its own way to calculate and charge this fee, but most of the cases we can find follow very similar principles, thus, residential and non-residential area have different rates, and the amount of fee is dependent on how big the impervious surface is. 2. Case Study We have collected the stormwater fee data of 7 villages or counties in the US, including Champaign in Illinois, San Antonio in Texas, Fort Worth Texas, Clayton in Georgia, Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, Milton in Massachusetts, and Downers Grove in Illinois. From these cities, we picked three of them to go into more detail level, they all have different methods to calculate the stormwater fee, San Antonio in Texas, Milton in Massachusetts and Village of Downers Grove in Illinois. The first case that we chose is San Antonio. …show more content…
San Antonio is a big city located in Texas, annual precipitation is 32.4in, maximum daily precipitation is 4.31in. It started to charge stormwater fee in 1993, which was a response to Water Quality Act 1987. Storm water fee funds a series of services includes street sweeping, channel mowing/restoration, drainage infrastructure maintenance, natural creekway debris removal. In 2017, the fee schedule is divided into two parts, residential and non-residential area, owners of residential area only need to pay a monthly fee based on how big their impervious surface is, from 3.45 to 9.41 dollars per month, but owners of non-residential area will pay much more, they need to pay a base fee which is 61.92 no matter how big their impervious surface is, and a monthly impervious fee which is based on the percent of impervious surface, bigger the number is, more they have to pay for per 1000 square feet. The average footage of typical American single family home is 2679 square feet, if an owner has a single family house in San Antonio, he or she need to pay 3.45 dollars per month for storm water fee, and the number is increasing every year. Next, Milton, MA has a slightly different method to calculate the stormwater fee, it also separates the residential and other area, but in Milton, multi-family residential area will pay same rate as commercial and industrial area, which depends on the footage of impervious surface. For single family home, the calculation is very similar with San Antonio, except for Milton charges stormwater fee yearly not monthly. If an owner has a single family house in Milton, he or she need to pay 52 dollars per year for storm water fee. The last case study that we chose is Downers Grove, a suburb in south-west of Chicago, which is a village in Dupage County, Illinois. The annual precipitation of this village in 2016 is 37.94 in, and it has the maximum daily precipitation rate on August 13, 2016 for 1.91 inches. The stormwater fee has been charged since 2013 with the recommendation of the 2012 Stormwater Study and has been modified in 2016 based on the 2016 Stormwater Utility Report. The stormwater fee in this place is related to the total amount of impervious surface on each property. The impervious surfaces may include parking lots, roofs, driveways, ratio, decks, swimming pools, and gravel and stone areas. The village divides free schedule into three categories: single family residential, non-single
1.Introduction
Stormwater is water that originates during precipitation events and snow/ice melt, if it hasn’t infiltrated into soil, then runoff happens, which could lead to urban waterlogging and waste of water resource. Since humans began living in concentrated village or urban settings, stormwater runoff has been an issue. During thousands of years, humankind didn’t really take action to deal with storm water, but within the high speed urbanization during modern time, impervious surface-especially in urban area-has increased dramatically, which made storm water management a problem that can’t be ignored anymore.
In 1972, Clean Water Act started to take effect, and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System is authorized by EPA in the same year. Cities had been requested to put effort in stormwater management. After that, a lot of US cities started to charge stormwater utility fee, in order to build and maintain stormwater management facilities, thereby to help solving a series of problems that stormwater can lead to. Each city has its own way to calculate and charge this fee, but most of the cases we can find follow very similar principles, thus, residential and non-residential area have different rates, and the amount of fee is dependent on how big the impervious surface is. 2. Case Study We have collected the stormwater fee data of 7 villages or counties in the US, including Champaign in Illinois, San Antonio in Texas, Fort Worth Texas, Clayton in Georgia, Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, Milton in Massachusetts, and Downers Grove in Illinois. From these cities, we picked three of them to go into more detail level, they all have different methods to calculate the stormwater fee, San Antonio in Texas, Milton in Massachusetts and Village of Downers Grove in Illinois. The first case that we chose is San Antonio. …show more content…
San Antonio is a big city located in Texas, annual precipitation is 32.4in, maximum daily precipitation is 4.31in. It started to charge stormwater fee in 1993, which was a response to Water Quality Act 1987. Storm water fee funds a series of services includes street sweeping, channel mowing/restoration, drainage infrastructure maintenance, natural creekway debris removal. In 2017, the fee schedule is divided into two parts, residential and non-residential area, owners of residential area only need to pay a monthly fee based on how big their impervious surface is, from 3.45 to 9.41 dollars per month, but owners of non-residential area will pay much more, they need to pay a base fee which is 61.92 no matter how big their impervious surface is, and a monthly impervious fee which is based on the percent of impervious surface, bigger the number is, more they have to pay for per 1000 square feet. The average footage of typical American single family home is 2679 square feet, if an owner has a single family house in San Antonio, he or she need to pay 3.45 dollars per month for storm water fee, and the number is increasing every year. Next, Milton, MA has a slightly different method to calculate the stormwater fee, it also separates the residential and other area, but in Milton, multi-family residential area will pay same rate as commercial and industrial area, which depends on the footage of impervious surface. For single family home, the calculation is very similar with San Antonio, except for Milton charges stormwater fee yearly not monthly. If an owner has a single family house in Milton, he or she need to pay 52 dollars per year for storm water fee. The last case study that we chose is Downers Grove, a suburb in south-west of Chicago, which is a village in Dupage County, Illinois. The annual precipitation of this village in 2016 is 37.94 in, and it has the maximum daily precipitation rate on August 13, 2016 for 1.91 inches. The stormwater fee has been charged since 2013 with the recommendation of the 2012 Stormwater Study and has been modified in 2016 based on the 2016 Stormwater Utility Report. The stormwater fee in this place is related to the total amount of impervious surface on each property. The impervious surfaces may include parking lots, roofs, driveways, ratio, decks, swimming pools, and gravel and stone areas. The village divides free schedule into three categories: single family residential, non-single