The annual stormwater utility bills have been mailed to Peachtree City residents, city officials said this week.
Residential stormwater bills range between $32 and $72 a year depending on the size of the home. Commercial entities are billed monthly based on their size, with Walmart paying $614 a month and the much smaller Ruby Tuesday restaurant paying $43 a month.
All stormwater bills are based on the amount of impervious surface on each lot. The theory is that impervious surfaces prevents rainwater from being absorbed by the ground, which drives the need for the city’s stormwater collection system.
Revenue from stormwater bills pays for the operation of the city’s stormwater department, which maintains the city’s stormwater collection system, cleaning out blocked drain pipes and replacing broken ones, for example.
In 2007 the city issued $3.7 million in bonds to fund a large-scale capital improvement program for stormwater projects. One of the most significant projects to date was the new earthen dam at Huddleston Pond, which became necessary after a major fault was detected in a drainage pipe.
Several months ago another major stormwater project was completed: the replacement of a culvert underneath Willowbend Road behind City Hall that diverts stormwater into nearby Lake Peachtree. A Peachtree City teen was killed in July 2005 when he and friends were playing in the area during a rainstorm.
Authorities said Danen Clarke was trying to rescue another person when he was sucked under the water and into the culvert that travels under the road. Clarke at the time had been wakeboarding with several friends in a pool of water that collected due to the heavy rainstorm.
Clarke was posthumously awarded the Boy Scouts of America’s extreme risk heroism award “for unusual heroism and extraordinary skill or resourcefulness in saving or attempting to save life at extreme risk to self.”
