Admin Order 58-06-12-F - Laserfiche WebLink

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part of the City's sewer service charge since the 1960s. Originally a combined charge, in 1983, the City separated the sewer service charge into sanitary and stormwater service charge components. The basis of the charge was water meter size, with residential properties paying a flat fee and commercial/industrial customers paying based on the size of their water meter. The concept behind the fee is that a customer pays for the stormwater services provided by the City of Eugene in general proportion to the amount of service provided to the customer. When based on water meter size, everything else being equal, the greater the water usage, the greater the size of premises which is correlated with amount of stormwater runoff, the greater the fee. Several adopted goals and policies support the use of stormwater service charges. These goals and policies are listed in the Comprehensive Stormwater Management Plan. 3.0 Revised Service Charge Practices Prior to January 1, 1994 the City of Eugene charged a stormwater service charge to all sanitary sewer customers. Any person who occupied property that was connected to the sanitary sewer system was charged a stormwater service charge based on the size of their water meter. In general, service charges were set by allocating the cost of a program to the customers based on their relative use of the system. A customer's water meter size, though, has, at best, an indirect relationship to the customer's relative effect on the stormwater system. The amount of impervious surface (hard surfaces such as roof tops and driveways) is a much better measurement of the customer's demand on the public stormwater system. Impervious surfaces increase both the amount and rate of stormwater runoff compared to natural conditions. The more impervious surface, the greater will be the need for the community to provide stormwater service and thus the greater the impact the customer will have on the system. Changing the basis for the service charge changes the customer base. Except as provided in Section 6 of this methodology, it is presumed that stormwater services are used whenever there is an improved premises. Rather than charge all people who are sanitary sewer customers, the stormwater service charge is now charged to all customers with impervious surface, the runoff from which directly or indirectly discharges to a public storm drainage facility. The revenues collected from service charges are currently used to fund a variety of stormwater services including but not limited to: maintaining channels, such as Amazon Creek, and catch basins, repairing and replacing the existing- conveyance system, picking up leaves, sweeping and flushing streets, preventing and cleaning up spills, mapping and information management, administration, central service allocation. Due to federal stormwater quality regulations, customer fees are also used to cover some of the stormwater-related components of Eugene's commitment to the West Eugene Wetlands Program, related natural resources protection and the best management practices outlined in the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System stormwater discharge permit issued to the City. 4.0 General Approach and Definitions To determine the total revenue requirements to be collected from stormwater service charges, the annual cost of the stormwater program is determined by assimilating four cost centers: quantity, quality, street-related, and administration. Administrative costs are divided proportionately between residential and general stormwater customers, quantity and quality costs are allocated to customers based on the amount of impervious surface they have or the residential category they represent, and street-related costs are allocated between residential and commercial/industrial customers by category based on street usage. Administrative Order - Page 2 of 17