Water consumers in Richmond, Ind., will now pay a storm water utility fee that has been tacked on to their Indiana-American Water Co. water bills.
Residential users will be charged $3 per month; commercial, industrial and nonprofit users will pay a $1.50 flat fee and an additional $1.50 per sq ft of hard surface. The funds are needed to help the city comply with a federally mandated order to disconnect its combined sewers, Richmond officials said.
"No one is exempt from the fee," said Greg Stiens, city director of engineering and public works. "We were mandated to stop dumping sewage into the Whitewater River, but it's an unfunded mandate."
"It is a mixed blessing," said Elden Harzman, associate pastor at Central United Methodist Church. "It's not going to put us out of business, but we didn't become aware of it until December. Obviously the church is always trying to be careful with the amount of money it spends."
Dick Smith, vice president of Earlham College, said while he has not reviewed the fee in detail, he hopes the school will receive credit for campus detention ponds. "We certainly agree with the general aim, and that is to improve the water quality in the Whitewater River," he said, "but we would hope we would receive credit for the work we've done."
Richmond's new storm water fee is designed to raise $17 million over 10 years to disconnect combined sewers and conduct other repairs. The Richmond Sanitary District (RSD) sanitary sewer charges will fund half of the project, which is estimated to cost $34 million.
"We have a master plan for projects that would last 10 years," said RSD Engineer Bob Wiwi.
Source: Palladium-Item
