INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Frustrated by the slow pace at which stormwater filtration equipment is being installed in Vero Beach, Mayor Dick Winger has proposed formation of a stormwater utility or authority with a dedicated source of funding to speed up the process.
Councilmembers Pilar Turner and Craig Fletcher oppose the idea, seeing an authority as merely “another layer of bureaucracy.”
At the budget meeting where the idea was raised, Councilmembers Jay Kramer and Amelia Graves seemed open to or in favor of the idea, which would cost homeowners $6 to $8 per month, with businesses paying more, depending on the size of the business property.
Urban runoff is one of the top sources of lagoon pollution, with stormwater carrying everything from fertilizer and grass clippings to motor oil and cigarette butts into the estuary.
Today, only 34 percent of Vero’s urban runoff goes through a baffle box or some other type of filtration before entering the lagoon. At the current pace of infrastructure improvement that number will increase to a mere 53 percent by 2019.
Winger wants more stormwater treated sooner.
“Runoff is one of the big three polluters,” he said. “We have stormwater, septic and muck to deal with. We don’t know which one is the worst polluter but we have all three of them in spades.”
“One advantage of having a stormwater utility is the money that is raised won’t get diverted to another use,” said Kramer. “Sometimes when politicians see a pot of money, they may want to spend it for another purpose. Here we would have alignment of the tax to the goal of the funding which was originally presented. An authority is not a bad idea, if it is a guarantee the money will be used for the intended purpose.”
City manager Jim O’Connor reinforced Kramer’s point: “By law the money raised by a storm water utility is restricted to storm water uses,” he told the council.
“We should look at pros and cons,” Graves said. “The public might want this.”
“It is something many cities do,” said Public Works Director Monty Falls.
After discussion, the council instructed staff to study stormwater utilities in other cities and come back with a proposal that would work for Vero Beach.
“Staff will bring that back for consideration by the City Council at our August 19 meeting,” Winger says. “If it is approved, there will have to be an authorizing resolution and then an ordinance will have to be crafted to lay out the structure.
“The ordinance would then have to come forward to be read and voted on twice with public comment both times. If everything goes smoothly, we could have the authority in place by the end of the year.”
“Senator Negron said recently that it is going to take all levels of government – Federal, state, county and cities – to save the lagoon and this something the city can do to deal with one of the problems fast enough to make a difference,” Winger said.
“There are very few people in this town who would object to paying $6 or $7 per month to help the lagoon.”
The stormwater program could be set up as a separate utility functioning inside the city government, overseen by Falls or Water and Sewer Director Rob Bolton, or as an independent authority with a five-person board.
The per-household cost could be collected by adding it to the city’s ad valorum tax or as a fee attached to the city utility bill. The utility/authority could be framed so money collected would be used only for baffle boxes and other filtration to directly treat storm water, or it could have a slightly broader lagoon focus, paying for water monitoring equipment, muck dredging in the fingers canals, and other projects related to urban runoff.
“All of the money would be used for the lagoon, and there would be a sunset provision so that when the projects are completed the tax would go away,” Winger said.
Fletcher said he thinks a stormwater authority is a crazy idea, just more bureaucracy. But it appears to be a way to fast-track a proven, available solution to one of the lagoon’s biggest problems when the waterway is in an acute crisis.