Editorial: Don’t give up on Collier stormwater utility

A stormwater utility is a worthwhile idea for Collier County commissioners to pursue, even if it takes them longer to figure out the appropriate way to create it.

Commissioners last week wisely delayed for a year the creation of a utility to better manage stormwater in unincorporated Collier. About 125 people from all walks of life and various corners of the county showed up at a Thursday night meeting to speak. It was a signal of widespread unrest with the proposal that amounted to a new fee of less than $200 annually for a homeowner.

By comparison, nobody spoke Thursday night during the first of two public hearings about the proposed $1.2 billion 2018-19 county budget, which is supported by a tax rate of $3.56 per $1,000 of property value, the same tax rate as this year’s budget.

Property taxes previously were tapped to pay for stormwater management. At county budget hearings in recent years, there’s been no such turnout to protest use of property taxes to manage runoff through stormwater projects.

Anti-fee sentiment

The strong sentiment against a new fee wasn’t surprising on the heels of the overwhelming Aug. 28 rejection of two referendums to initiate fire fees in North Collier and Immokalee fire districts. Those fees wouldn’t have eliminated property taxes to provide essential public services, but would have substantially replaced the longstanding practice of relying on property taxes to pay for them.

Letters mailed to property owners by county government about plans to initiate the new stormwater fee created the backlash. Once the outcry began, county officials began trying to make eleventh-hour adjustments to the fees to take individual circumstances into account to make them fairer.

The stormwater utility and fees had been a couple of years in the making, so adjustments toward the end were a sign this proposal wasn’t ready for prime time.

Still a need

The appropriate distinction in the commission vote was to work further on the proposal, then reconsider it for the 2019-20 budget year. It wasn’t a vote to scuttle the stormwater utility. At Tuesday’s commission meeting, county officials said they’ll have further discussions in October.

Some folks who addressed commissioners were steadfast that rainwater stays confined to their property. Even if that could be demonstrated, it doesn’t negate other valuable aspects of a stormwater utility:

• This is a growing area that gets an average of 52 inches of rainfall annually and last year received nearly 70 inches, so a management system for all that water is necessary. Any hurricane season can bring additional rainfall misery as evidenced last year in Houston.

• Drainage pipes eventually will fail if they were installed decades ago, not to today’s standards. Ditches that aren’t maintained regularly, as has been the case in Collier to control costs, eventually will catch up to neighborhoods.

• Growth creates more pavement and thus more runoff to manage. That includes roads everyone uses to get where they’re going. Anyone using those roads benefits from them being passable, not flooded. Increase road impact fees to cover costs? There’s already an outcry that high impact fees are contributing to an unaffordable housing market for the workforce.

• Older neighborhoods, such as Poinciana Village, bear the brunt of rainwater collection when surrounding development comes in at higher ground levels with more fill.

• Collier’s image and its economy rely on the quality of its waterways. We have impaired waters at risk of only becoming worse without harnessing runoff and strictly regulating the causes of pollution.