FAYETTEVILLE -- An assessment last year showed the city needs about $20 million of work to get flooding under control. Adding a fee to residents' water bills might become the way to achieve that goal.
The City Council on Tuesday will consider awarding a $229,000 contract to CH2M Hill Engineers for a stormwater utility study. It will look into the drainage needs of the city and suggest ways to pay for the improvements, including the option of a fee on utility bills, City Engineer Chris Brown said.
The city dedicates $410,000 annually to drainage improvement from its capital improvements plan. Last year, a little more -- about $550,000 total -- went toward repairing the damage from April 2017 flooding.
About 9 inches of rain rapidly fell from April 28-30 last year, revealing the most vulnerable spots. A heat map Brown compiled showed the areas near Asbell Elementary School, Holt Middle School, the historic neighborhoods east of Wilson Park, Clarence Craft Park east of Old Wire Road and Mission Boulevard and north of Gulley Park suffer the most.
A preliminary assessment Brown presented to the council late last year estimated $15 million to $20 million in needed drainage improvement projects. The amount didn't include labor costs.
Common drainage measures include culverts, retention or detention ponds, bioswales, drains, curbs and gutters.
At the current rate, it would take about 50 years to get the city in shape. Brown suggested using a combination of the capital improvement fund, money from a potential bond renewal from voters and a stormwater utility fee.
Bids
The following firms submitted proposals after the city put out requests for qualifications to do a stormwater utility feasibility study:
• Amec Foster Wheeler Environment & Infrastructure (Mobile, Ala.)
• Black & Veatch Management Consulting (Overland Park, Kan.)
• Burns & McDonnell Engineering Co. (Springdale)*
• CH2M Hill Engineers (Little Rock)*
• Freese and Nichols (Tulsa, Okla.)
• Raftelis Financial Consultants (Memphis, Tenn.)
• RJN Group (Fayetteville)*
*denotes firms that were shortlisted in the selection process. A contract was negotiated with CH2M Hill Engineers.
Source: Fayetteville
The fee would serve as an ongoing source of revenue for an ongoing cost, he said. The council would have to sign off on the fee, and it's possible the consultant could end up not recommending one, Brown said.
Either way, the study will tell city officials what areas need the most attention first, what kind of staffing is needed and how to effectively address stormwater issues, he said.
A public education and outreach program is included in the contract.
"For the people who are flooded every time it rains, you would expect it to be an easy sell," Brown said. "The person who's at the very top of the hill -- maybe not so much."
A potential fee would be based on the impervious surface area of each property, Brown said. Basically, the more concrete a property takes up, the higher a fee would be assessed.
For example, one single-family home taking up 2,500 square feet could be considered one equivalent residential unit. An apartment complex taking up 25,000 square feet would be 10 units. A certain fee would be attached to how many units a property has.
The city charges users for water and sewer use, a service charge based on meter size, and a safe water fee for watershed protection and taxes. Customers in other cities who use Fayetteville's system pay an extra fee.
The council gave the green light for a study in August. CH2M Hill was one of seven firms applying for the job. The company, formally known as Jacobs, has managed the city's wastewater for decades.
A final report should be ready by March. The contract includes stopping points throughout the process, so the council can discontinue the study if it chooses.
How a city takes on flooding and drainage issues depends on where it is, what kind of soil it has, its topography and a number of other factors, said Greg DiLoreto with the American Society of Civil Engineers. Adopting a utility fee to help pay for stormwater drainage needs started becoming more commonplace in the early 1990s, he said.
It makes sense to consider stormwater management as a utility, just like any other service a city provides, DiLoreto said.
"For stormwater, it's getting rid of it after it gets on your property, and that costs money," he said. "Unless folks like being flooded -- that's the alternative."
Other cities handle stormwater according to needs. Bentonville uses Federal Emergency Management Administration data and addresses drainage opportunities via capital money each budget cycle, Mayor Bob McCaslin said.
"Bentonville has a few areas that have no grade," he said. "These areas have experienced drainage issues since the 1970s and are very challenging to address. In general, the city does not have a large issue with storm drainage."
Rogers doesn't typically see rampant flooding but has a few trouble spots it tries to address when needed, especially on the west side of town near Rainbow Road, spokesman Ben Cline said.
"That area has just really grown really fast," he said. "A lot of times you're playing catch up on drainage and other things."
Springdale's Public Works Department largely handles its drainage needs. Only a few areas typically suffer during heavy rain, and the city recently mapped its stormwater systems into a Geographic Information Systems database, said Brad Baldwin, director of engineering.
Springdale's City Council also has tweaked ordinances to require some type of detention pond with certain developments, rather than leaving them as an option, he said. More and more development coming to the city, just like throughout Northwest Arkansas, requires more action to mitigate the runoff effects from paved surfaces, Baldwin said.
Large rain events usually come as a residual effect of a tropical storm or hurricane, said Peter Snyder, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tulsa, Okla. The storm season was a busy one last year.
April 2017 was the second-wettest April on record for Fayetteville at 12.86 inches, Snyder said. The highest was in April 2011, at 15.28 inches. April and May are typically the wettest months of the year. It's hard to predict that kind of torrential rain much in advance, he said.
"When you have rainfall like that, it's tough for any drainage system to handle," he said.
On May 27, flooding ravaged Ellicott City, Md., which has a population of about 66,000 and lies about 15 miles east of Baltimore. The city was still reeling from a devastating flood two years ago. An engineering firm recommended about $35 million in immediate improvements then and $60 to $85 million in long-term improvements, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Floods are the deadliest weather-related killers in the United States, according to the National Weather Service.
Brown said the city has limited ability to tackle problem areas because much of the land is privately owned. City crews might be able to work on an individual parcel, but to have a truly systematic solution, they need to get to the surrounding land, he said.
A utility fee would serve as a buy-in of sorts and expand the city's ability to work in more areas, he said.
"We've had streets flooded where you can't get around and emergency services can't get where they need to," he said. "It's a public health problem."
NW News on 06/04/2018
