Opinion: Repairing stormwater ravage
The front-page story, "The ravages of rainfall," in the May 17 Enquirer displays the challenge of stormwater management facing Cincinnati and many other cities. Although climate change is a factor, this problem has existed for decades.
All around Cincinnati there are aging sewer facilities called combined sewer overflows or sanitary sewer overflows that were designed, under sustained wet weather conditions when stormwater overwhelms the system, to discharge raw sewage into streams, Mill Creek, the Ohio and tributary rivers, parks, gullies and hillsides. Basement backups are another consequence of stormwater invasion.
This is the fundamental and illegal problem that the Metropolitan Sewer District is now being force to fix (like in other cities) at great cost by a federal court order under the Clean Water Act (the "Consent Decree"). The task is to exclude most of the stormwater now entering sanitary sewers and manage stormwater flows through a variety of well-known solutions.
Curiously, MSD is not mentioned at all in the Enquirer article. But stormwater getting into sanitary sewers is only half of the problem. Over-land stormwater flows cause the erosion, destruction of properties and flooding described in The Enquirer. Some of the infrastructure improvements required for the sewer system would also greatly reduce over-land stormwater threats. These include day-lighting streams back out of sewers, building bioswales (horizontal ditches), retention and detention ponds, and a number of possible property improvements.
But to fully address the over-land stormwater issue would require additional solutions for flows coming off undeveloped hillsides or down canyons, and filling low-lying areas. The MSD revenue for fixing the sewer problem comes from the sewer charges on water bills that are based on drinking water use! And have a high minimum charge and a 20% discount for big water users (commercial, industrial and institutional). Under this regressive rate structure more than half of single-family water/sewer accounts are subsidizing the big users.
Responding to complaints, MSD is now designing a stormwater fee that could produce the revenue needed for the fix, but the flawed (reduced) rate structure based on water use for the sanitary system remains. Although a welcome change, the stormwater fee is to be based only on property impervious surface area (buildings, pavement) which ignores the reality that under sustained storm conditions, even pervious surfaces like lawns become saturated producing essentially impervious run-off. Whether the proposed fee structure also has regressive features related to property size remains to be seen.
For direct threats to property, other stormwater solutions are needed: interceptions and diversions beyond those protecting sanitary sewers; property repairs and improvements where feasible; and buyouts when properties are not salvageable. The city’s Stormwater Management Utility has no mandate or funding to adequately address this infrastructure problem. The ravages of over-land stormwater are an important legacy cost, reflecting errors on several levels: zoning decisions, property inspections/disclosures, title insurance, mortgage due diligence and city/county infrastructure planning.
A regional public compensation fund set up using stormwater fees and other assessments would provide relief for the victims of stormwater environmental injustice.
Robert Park lives in Anderson Township and a member of Miami Group, Sierra Club.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Opinion: Repairing stormwater ravage
