As Columbia flooding worsens, you could pay higher fees for improvements

An extra $60 a year for the typical Columbia household could be city leaders’ answer to lessening the city’s ever-increasing flooding problems.

“We’re flooding in places we’ve never flooded before,” City Councilman Daniel Rickenmann said Tuesday, as council members seemed comfortable with a plan to increase stormwater fees for city residents and businesses to address those woes. “I get more phone calls and more pictures (from residents) every time it rains. It’s increasing.”

Households in the city pay $6.80 each month toward maintaining infrastructure – such as stormdrains, pipes and ditches – that manages runoff from storms, which eventually makes its way into streams, lakes and rivers.

Businesses and other non-residential properties pay the fee based on the physical footprint of their surfaces that don’t allow water to pass through, such as roofs and pavement. The University of South Carolina, for instance, pays about $23,000 a month in stormwater fees, according to data provided by the city’s engineering department.

By Mayor Steve Benjamin’s estimate, a $5 monthly increase for each household and an equivalent increase for non-residential properties could pay for some $80 million in stormwater improvement projects throughout the city over the next five years.

“Statewide, with the billions of dollars of damage we saw in 2015, I’m not sure we need anymore lessons,” Benjamin said. “Let’s act now.”

Projects the city would like to address include improving stormwater pipe capacity and detention basins near the infamous intersection of Main and Whaley streets as well as areas in the Shandon and Cottontown neighborhoods and along Penn Branch, near Trenholm Road.

It’s been five years since the city last increased its stormwater fee.

The stormwater increase, which the majority of council members seemed confident in approving ahead of upcoming budget votes, likely will accompany a proposed 4.75 percent water and sewer rate increase in the coming year, although council has not voted on that.

With the proposed increases, water, sewer and stormwater bills for the average Columbia household could rise about $8.50 a month total in the coming year. That amounts to an extra $102 a year.

This story was originally published May 2, 2017 at 7:00 PM with the headline "As Columbia flooding worsens, you could pay higher fees for improvements."