Stormwater info runs dry

By The News Virginian Staff

Published: May 17, 2008

Having correctly decided against increasing taxes, the Waynesboro City Council now must play the part of budgetary mercenary, wading through the numeric jungle in search of $600,000 wanted for dead, at least until next year. So in the spirit of things, let us offer a slice of anathema: Kill stormwater.
Even now, with this sentence yet incomplete, cries of agony, outrage and horror ring in the ears amid breathless admonitions of biblical floods submerging the city. Few things in Waynesboro stir the emotions like stormwater, a problem which traces its origins roughly to Noah.
So let us explain.
First, the recent history: The City Council planned last year to invest $1.2 million in the creation of a stormwater management division that would be funded by utility fees imposed on property owners. That proposition kindled an uproar among business owners, who would have been compelled to shoulder most of the cost. Council officials then reversed field, adding the investment into the general fund. City Manager Doug Walker’s proposed budget cut the original amount to less than half at $585,000.
We suggest for the next fiscal year cutting the money altogether, which would pull the city to within $24,000 of a balanced budget. This move would represent a tabling rather than a halt of stormwater spending. We do not discount the significance of the issue, and, in fact, opined in support of a $6.2 million bond for stormwater repairs. But there is more to the subject.
Since voters backed the bond last fall in a non-binding referendum, we have discovered that the more we learn about the city’s stormwater problem the less we know. Specifically, we are interested in understanding the extent to which the system’s deficiencies are attributable to want of maintenance or to lack of needed infrastructure. Those two causes lie at the end of extremes: maintenance in the world of stormwater can be dirty but relatively inexpensive work; infrastructure is costly.
In an effort to answer these and other questions on the subject, The News Virginian is launching a stormwater investigation. Readers with specific knowledge of the problem, its nature and how it developed are invited to e-mail reporter Jimmy LaRoue at or call him at (540) 932-3561.
Stormwater is an issue of tedious complexity. In addition to flooding, which concerns people here most, stormwater runoff, environmentalists say, carries pollutants, erodes streams and alters the spawning, development and migration of fish. From these potential hazards have sprouted the inevitable weeds: local, state and federal regulations and a massive stormwater industry.
So far, the City Council has persisted in attempts to get the cart to pull the stormwater horse. The council established a stormwater management division before determining how to pay for it. First, the city crafted a fee structure that unduly burdened business owners, then it asked business owners for input.
Having sloshed its way through the discussion and stumbled over the details, the council now must consider whether to proceed with a diluted version of its original stormwater plan, absent the management division it had originally envisioned and the clear sense of direction that has been lacking all along.
In other words, it’s fourth-and-long. Send in the punting unit. Maybe in the course of the next 12 months, the council can devise a winning strategy to supplant one that over the previous 12 has produced more fumbles than advances. Then we all might gain the sense that stormwater money is effectively treating the malady rather than administering a high-priced placebo.