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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1992-129l 2' 3 4 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 RESOLUTION NO. 92-129 RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF SAN BERNARDINO ESTABLISHING THE AMOUNT OF A MONTHLY SERVICE FEE FOR THE OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF THE STORM DRAINAGE SYSTEM WITHIN THE CITY. WHEREAS, the City of San Bernardino, California (the "City") on April 6, 1992, gave the final reading to an ordinance which establishes and authorizes the levy of a monthly service fee for the purpose of operation and maintenance of drainage facilities as more fully described in the April ordinance; and WHEREAS, the City has caused a preparation of certain engineer's report entitled, "Engineer's Report -- Storm Drain as Utility - City Wide - Monthly Fee Proposal," (the "Engineer's Report") which sets forth the purpose and methodology as well as the analysis for determination of the costs associated with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit process; and WHEREAS, the City is currently in the process of amending the San Bernardino Municipal Code in order to establish a permanent declaration of all publicly owned drainage facilities in the City being declared a public utility; and WHEREAS, the City deems it desirable to adopt this Resolution in order to set the storm drain utility fee as authorized pursuant to the Ordinance and provide for any subsequent adjustments in the amount of the storm drain utility fee. / / / / //// / / / / / / / / 3/23/92 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 RESO: ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF MONTHLY SERVICE FEE FOR OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF STORM DRAINAGE SYSTEM WITHIN THE. CITY. NOW, THEREFORE, THE MAYOR AND COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SAN BERNARDINO, CALIFORNIA, DO HEREBY FIND, RESOLVE, DETERMINE AND ORDER, AS FOLLOWS: SECTION 1. Storm Drain Utility Fee. The initial amount of the storm drain utility fee shall be $0.0145 per hundred cubic feet (hcf) of water delivery as determined by water purveyor metering systems. Said storm drain utility fee shall be subject to increase pursuant to the terms of any subsequent resolutions to be adopted by the Mayor and Common Council, which resolutions shall provide for adjustments to the storm drain service fee in order to cover any changes in costs or any administrative and carrying costs incurred in connection with compliance with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit process, and maintenance of the City's storm drainage system. / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / - z - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 RESO: ESTABLTSHING AMOUNT OF MONTHLY SERVICE FEE FOR OPERATION' AND MAINTENANCE OF STORM DRAINAGE SYSTEM WITHIN THE.CITY. I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing resolution was duly adopted by the Mayor and Common Council of the City of San Bernardino at a regular meeting thereof, held on the 6th day of April 1992, by the following vote, to-wit: Council Members: AYES NAYS ABSTAIN ABSENT ESTRADA x __ REILLY R HERNANDEZ x MAUDSLEY % MINOR x POPE-LUDLAM x MILLER x Ra~~ asney~ erk The foregoing resolution is hereby approved this g~ day of G 1992. /,~~ `~~° .'=R. olc mb, Mayor City of San Bernardino Approved as to form and legal content: James F. Penman City Attorney - 3 - ~- City of S Bdno Res. 92-129 adopted 4/6/92 ENGINEER'S REPORT STORM DRAIN AS UTILITY CITY WIDE MONTHLY FEE PROPOSAL MARCH 18, 1992 Prepared By Department of Public Works City of San Bernardino INTRODUCTION Congress in 1987 amended Section 402 of the Federal Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C.A 1342(p)) to require the federal Environmental Protection Agency to promulgate regulations for applications for permits for storm water discharges. In general terms these regulations require the control of pollutants from storm water discharges by requiring a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the discharge of stormwaters into waters of the United States. These EPA regulations require NPDES permits for discharges from municipal storm sewers on a system-wide or jurisdiction-wide basis. The EPA delegated its responsibility to the State and the State in turn delegated to the Regional Water Quality Control Board the responsibility for management and administration of this program. The Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB), after review of the surrounding area, determined that it would process one permit for the County and 15 cities with each being co-permittees on the permit. The permit sets forth requirements for reporting on the existing system, land uses, maintenance and changes to the system on a yearly basis. The permit also requires a testing program, a Best Management Practices (BMP), and Drainage Area Master Plan (DAMP) and regular updates on inspections for illegal connections and condition of the system. This is an ongoing program and has several other requirements and conditions as detailed in NPDES permit No. CA 8000200. PURPOSE The purpose of the proposed utility fee for storm drains is to recover the cost of operation of the permit and meeting the requirement of the EPA mandate. No funding source was allowed in the action taken by congress and each agency must fund its own portion of the compliance efforts. The permit has been issued and was mandated for our size city for the current year. Failure to meet the requirements or comply with the permit are punishable by fines of up to $25,000.00 per day for each and every day of infraction. The concept of co-permittees was deemed to be the most cost effective method of compliance as it allows shared costs for the basic permit and the testing required.The permit application fee is presently $50,000.00 per year. The city must participate, along with its co-permittees and must meet the requirements of the permit. Preliminary estimates place the first year costs at $265,000.00 for the testing, inspection, monitoring, permit and reporting required. Existing law allows for the storm drainage system to be determined to be a utility and subject to a monthly service fee for maintenance and operations. The concept of a monthly service fee for generation of funds appears to be the most reasonable method of funding, equally shares the cost among the users and provides for a monthly collection of costs as opposed to a once a year billing. METHODOIAGY How should the costs of meeting permit requirements be distributed? How should the funds be collected? What methods of cost allocation would best distribute the costs fairly and equally to the residents and businesses within the community? Within the existing Municipal Code it has been reasonably determined that the city is a single entity. That is, there are functions, services and dangers that affect the community as a whole and all those within the city limits must be expected to share responsibility for the costs whether they use the service or not. Such things as police services, fire services, parks, libraries, street maintenance, street lighting, trash, water and storm drain fees are collected in various ways but are funded by all those within the city limits even if they have not used the specific service. Following the doctrine of a common enemy, each resident or business suffers when any part of the whole community is damaged. In this respect, pollution of waters of the United States damages all the citizens of the Unites States and the responsibility for insuring clean waters entering the system belongs to each member of society. Within the NPDES permit and attached to this report, is appendix A, which is the method by which each co-permittee will be assessed their portion of all shared costs. In general terms, undeveloped land is excluded, the percentage of developed area by land use is compared with the total area covered by the permit, again by land use and multiplied by a coefficient of run off for each of the listed types of development. By this methodology, area and amount of runoff is accounted for although no allowance is made for quality of runoff. Again, the theory of common enemy comes into play. Any time hazardous materials enter the storm water discharge, the entire community suffers and each person in their own way contributes to these discharges. Each person who drives a car for example contributes rubber, lead, oil, gas and other toxic material to the roads on which they travel, they contribute to the local gasoline station operations,the tire shop and all other support services for vehicle maintenance/repair and any pollution problems they may cause. Presently, there is no complete documentation on the land use types, areas of land and ownership of such lands available on which to build a direct cost linkage. However, after careful study and review with the City Water Department, it appears that the water usage bill provides a similar and fair distribution methodology. Under present city code provisions, each water user is billed for the amount of water used. Additionally, each user is billed a monthly sewer charge based on the amount of water provided. There have been several studies that associate sewer usage with water consumption. Naturally, not all water used in the home goes into the sewer collection system. Much is used for irrigation, car washing, pool needs and other cleaning operations. It is therefore reasonable that the water not entering the sewer collection system is or can be runoff from the site. Rates are determined based on these factors. The proposed methodology is for each water user in the city to be billed a storm drainage utility fee based on the amount of water delivered to the site. One concern in any such system is the fairness of allocation of cost. However, a close review of appendix A supports such a cost allocation plan. As an example, consider the single family lot. The large lots with significant amount of undeveloped open space have a lower coefficient of runoff (0.594) than do typical residential lots of 3-4 dwelling per acre (0.695). As the lots get smaller, the lot coverage goes up and therefore the amount of runoff goes up. However, if two identical families were studied with one living on a 2.5 acre lot and the other living on a lot that is 3-4 to the acre, each would have the same water usage within the home (identical families). The difference in actual water billing rates would take into account the amount of landscaped area and would be higher on the larger lot. Similarly the larger lot would produce more runoff but not in a direct line relationship with area (different runoff coefficients). The 2.5 acre lot would equal l0 of the smaller lots but would likely generate only 6 times the run off due to less developed area. In similar analysis, commercial/retail centers and users have much larger percentages of impervious area and therefore generate much more runoff but again, their usage in generally higher due to the nature of their facility. One exception does however exist. There is the occasional user that has significant water usage for the creation of a product that contains the water used or is related to a water intensive process method. In this instance, the proposal is to make adjustments to the rate when water usage exceeds certain minimum amounts that are indicative of such types of usage. The City of San Bernardino does not supply all of the water used within the City limits. Other water purveyors do supply approximately 7.5$ of all city residents with water. However, these suppliers are willing to include the billing for storm drains and to supply the total water consumption amounts to the city. COST ALLOCATION Staff has contacted the Water Department for the City of San Bernardino as well as East Valley Water Department. These two agencies represent 99$ of all water supplied within the city limits. Staff considered the 1991 calendar year as representative of the water usage in the area. Naturally, monthly variations as well as yearly variations are to be expected. The water departments report water usage in hundred cubic feet (hcf) in all of their data. 1 hcf equals 748 gallons of water used. Water usage for 1991 are as follows: San Bernardino Municipal Water 17,330,000 hcf East Valley Water (within City) 1,301,844 hcf Total 18,631,844 hcf Each agency has express a willingness to add the billing to their regular billing cycle but at a cost of 2$ of the amount billed. This covers programming costs, printing, mailing and related charges. Using an estimated first year cost for the permit requirements of $265,000.00 (see PURPOSE section) and adding the 2~ billing costs yields a cost to the city of $270,300.00. By dividing this number by the total volume of water delivered yields the billing rate per hcf $270.300.00 18,631,844 equals $0.0145/hcf The typical single family residential unit uses 21 hcf per month over the year. The proposed billing rate would add an additional $0.3047 per month to the bill or $3.66 total charge per year for the protection of the Waters of the United States from pollution. As previously discussed, large commercial users that use the water in the product or process have not been addressed. The above formula is based on total water delivered with no adjustment. It is recommended that such users be required to submit the request for reduction in fees to the Director of Public Works for verifications and recommendation to the Mayor and Common Council. In this manner, the actual numbers and effect can be determined and the size, location of the site, actual process and water usage can be better addressed. It is anticipated that very few users will meet the minimum requirements of process water or consumed water in the product being produced. CONCLUSION Congress, in an effort to address pollution of the water of the United State, has mandated compliance with NPDES permit requirements. They provided no funding source other than the local agency for such compliance. Existing law allows for the storm drain system to be treated as any other utility in that fees may be collected for the operation and maintenance of the system. Staff, is recommending that a monthly service charge be placed on all water users to fairly collect the monies related to the operation and maintenance of the system. Costs are presently estimated only for the NPDES permit requirements. Adjustment may be made in the future to reflect actual costs for operations and maintenance. As presently proposed, the typical home will average approximately $0.30 per month in additional fees. The relationship of water usage to potential storm water discharge has been reasonably determined and explained in this report. APPENDIX A The following formula will be used by the District to determine the shaze costs as required in the "National Pollutant Dischazge Elimination System Stormwater Pemvt Implementation Agreement, Santa Ana Region", Section N. Total Program Costs will be detemvned by the DISTRICT and allocated to the CITIES and the COUNTY by the following formula: ~ency AA* x (annual cost x 0.95) =Agency's Contribution Total ,e, q** AA = Adjusted Acreage * = Each agency as listed below ** = Total adjusted acreage AGENCY: ounty o an Bemazdrno Cities of: Big Bear Lake Chino Chino Hills Colton Fontana Grand Terrace Highland Loma Linda Montclair Ontario Rancho Cucamonga Redlands Rialto San Bernardino Upland Yucaipa 2. The Agency Adjusted Acreage will be determined by the DISTRICT using the following formula: [(Ilu 1 -Ulu 1) x Clu 11 + [(Ilu 2 -Ulu 2) x Clu 2l +...+[(U 1 - 13) x Cl = Adjusted Acreage I - Improved acreage for each landuse as defined below U - Unimproved acreage for each landuse as defined below lu - landuse as defined in the following table C - Runoff coefficient as derived from the San Bernardino County Hydrology Manual Appendix A (continued) Landuse Formula Desi nation Runoff Coefficient (C) mgle amtly Residential 2.5 acre lots lu 1 .5 4 1 acre lots lu 2 .5 4 dwellings/acre lu 3 .6 5 -4 dwellings/acre lu 4 .695 -7 dwellings/acre lu 5 -1 dwellings/acre lu 6 •~ >10 dwellings/acre lu 7 •~ ulhple amrly Residential ondomintums lug 0•~ Apartments lu 9 obtle ome arks lu 10 •~ 5 ommercral, owntown Business or Industrial lu 11 0.820 chool lu 12 ublrc ark Agrrcultural lu 13 .5 4 ndeveloped 1-13 0.54 Reference: San Bernardln0 County Hydrology Manual and SC;ACi modrIled Anderson Landuse classification (1992) APPENDIX B PROPOSED 1992/93 BUDGET EXPENDITURES AS CO-PERMITTEE FOR NPDES PERMIT I. Proportionate share of cost incurred by Flood Control as lead agency comprised of - Permit reporting, testing of approximately 30 locations, Administration, Drainage Area Management Plan (DAMP) and Best Management Practices (BMP) manuals and basic yearly Permit fee $64,200.00 II. Additional testing of outflows within the City as necessary to isolate specific illegal discharge. Estimated to be S sights at $6,500 per site $52,000.00 III. Inspection of Storm drainage System 1. Inspector - 1000 hours @ $40 $40,000.00 2. Video taping System (Private Contractor) $60,000.00 3. Clean Up at contaminated locations and disposal of material $10,000.00 IV. Annual Updating of Permit Exhibits (maps, drainage system improvements, land usage and area) 1. Public Works Department $16,300.00 2. Planning Department $12,000.00 3. Clerical Support for reports and data $10,500.00 Subtotal $265,000.00 Billing Fee (2$) $ 5,300.00 TOTAL $270,300.00