South Carolina Town to Launch Storm Water Management Program

Sept. 26, 2019

The California Branch in Moncks Corner has often been a site for flooding. Later this year, the management program is predicted to combat future problems

 

Later this year, the town of Moncks Corner in Berkeley County, South Carolina, will start a new storm water management program. 

Officials said the program has come about out of a need to protect residents and property from the damaging effects of heavy rain, The Berkeley Independent reported. Because of the program, all single-family houses will have to soon pay $36.00 per year into the utility, and lots that have two more separate houses on it will pay $36 per house. 

Doug Polen, the community development director for the town of Moncks Corner, told The Berkeley Independent that the point of the coming program is twofold — managing quantity and water quality. 

The program, abbreviated to SWMP, will point out to town crews which ditches, culverts and other parts of the system need to be cleaned out, expanded or worked on. The town plans to hire three public service employees whose sole job will be storm water maintenance, according to The Berkeley Independent. 

Polen told The Berkeley Independent that water quantity is easy to see as after significant rainfall, some ditches fill with water, which can take weeks to return to normal. 

To help with water quality, the town’s building and code enforcement crews have become Certified Erosion Prevention and Sediment Control Inspectors and will ensure that the town meets the regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency and the South Carolina DHEC, according to The Berkeley Independent. 

Polen told the newspaper that often, as water flows into ditches and drainage ponds, it can carry soil, but it can also cause erosion. 

Since a storm water utility is new to Moncks Corner, it will mock Berkeley County’s using the “‘amount of impervious surface on a property to determine the fee associated with the lot,” The Berkeley Independent reported. 

Read more on storm water management and erosion control.