A chart in the CDM report has an “anticipated debt service” category that jumps from zero in 2011 to more than $2 million in 2016.
NORTHAMPTON – The cost of getting rain and other run-off from the ground and into the local system of rivers is about to hit home.
The Board of Public Works is scheduled to discuss a recent report by CDM of New Hampshire that projects it will cost almost $100 million to repair, replace and improve the city’s aged storm water and flood control system. The most likely source of revenue would be a storm water enterprise fund that would be fed by property owners. The new bills would be similar to the water and sewer bills that now go out. The initial estimate of $66 per month for a single-family house could increase over time.
Neglected for years, the city’s system of storm water drains is more than a century old in places and has had little more than emergency maintenance. Storm water drains differ from sewer lines in that they carry mostly run-off from rain into the Connecticut and Mill rivers while sewer lines carry household and industrial waste to the wastewater treatment plant, which cleanses it before discharging it into the Connecticut.
Edward S. HuntleyHistorically, some city lines carried both storm water and sewage, but the two systems were separated years ago. The sewer enterprise fund pays to maintain and upgrade the sewer system, just as the water enterprise fund finances the delivery of clean water. Due in part to federal mandates, Northampton will now be required to upgrade its storm water system as well.
“Every city is going through this right now,” said Edward S. Huntley, the Director of the Department of Public Works.
Chicopee and Westfield are among the local communities that already bill users of their storm water system, but every city and town that flushes its run-off into the Connecticut must come into compliance with the federal mandates, Huntley said.
The Army Corp of Engineers, which oversees the dams and levees that control flooding, is demanding that the city correct deficiencies in that system at an estimated cost of $1.2 million. A separate mandate from the federal government will cost taxpayers about $250,000 a year. CDM projects the 20-year cost at $95 million.
“And that’s just the start of it,” Huntley said.
Stricter standards are demanding that communities purge storm water of nitrates and other contaminants, which could prove even more costly. A chart in the CDM report has an “anticipated debt service” category that jumps from zero in 2011 to more than $2 million in 2016.
Huntley said the original estimate of $66 per household will probably get the city through the first five years of the 20-year plan laid out by CDM. The Board of Public Works will probably discuss the matter this month, Huntley said. If it approves the creation of a storm water enterprise fund, the measure would go before the City Council for approval.