Any official who visits a Georgia

river, stream or creek after a heavy rain understands why Brant Keller

is a wanted man.

Keller is director of the Griffin

Stormwater Utility. The city of 24,000 is Georgia's first local government

to implement a practical and successful solution to one of the state's

most serious challenges in meeting federal water quality standards: stormwater

runoff.

[Keller served as Peachtree

City's director of public works and recreation from 1978 to 1984 and lives

in Williamson in nearby Pike County.]

The problem, according to the

state Environmental Protection Division, is that "Residential, commercial

and industrial development has directly affected natural resource areas

and wildlife habitats by replacing natural cover with impervious surfaces

like asphalt and concrete."

"Rivers and streams are

affected by erosion and sedimentation, stormwater runoff and municipal

and industrial discharge."

The goal of a stormwater utility

is to provide a funding source equitable, stable and dedicated to managing

a watershed approach for water quality and water quantity issues. Even

better, a stormwater utility can be a tool for government to educate contractors

and residents about their impact on water quality, hold them accountable

for the runoff impact from their properties, and provide a financial incentive,

ultimately, to use environmentally efficient construction measures.

The idea is catching on as

the population of Georgia increases, especially in metro Atlanta which,

according to census estimates, is attracting more than 500 new residents

a day. Keller has made 120 presentations on stormwater utilities since

Griffin's was established five years ago, 70 of them to Georgia local

governments. In fact, he says, "There isn't a stormwater utility

going in Georgia that I haven't made a presentation to."

Still, it's slow going: Griffin's

was a five-year process from conception to reality. So far, there are

just two more utilities in the state (Columbia County and the city of

Decatur) although several others are conducting feasibility studies. [Peachtree

City is considering such a study.]

The mission statement of the

Griffin Stormwater Utility is to promote the safety and wellbeing of the

public, the protection of the environment, the encouragement of commerce

and sound development decisions.

The program operates by charging

property owners based on the amount of impervious surface, whether roof,

patio, pool, parking lot or driveway. First, Griffin mapped and inventoried

the entire 14 square miles of city and its 165 miles of roads on a geographic

information system, a GIS. Then, it calculated the number of "equivalent

runoff units" (ERUs) for each property, based on the square footage

of impervious surface.

Commercial property owners

are charged $3.50 per ERU, every 2,200 square feet of impervious surface.

The city's approximately 10,000 residential customers are charged a flat

monthly rate of one ERU.

The money collected is held

in an enterprise fund, all of which is dedicated to water-related improvement

projects and operations and maintenance. For example, some of the money

is used to construct regional water detention ponds or for land acquisition.

The land acquisition includes the mitigation of land away from floodplains

for houses so the floodplains can be used as a buffer zone.

Griffin, which contains six

drainage basins and 39 sub-basins within its boundaries, has earned national,

state and local accolades for its watershed-based approach. Of more than

400 stormwater utilities nationwide, Griffin's is also the first to comply

with the national standard set in Phase II regulation of the National

Pollution Discharge Elimination System. (Phase I applies to cities of

100,000 people or more, and Phase II applies to smaller municipalities

and other urban areas).

In addition to the Clean Water

Act of 1972, the utility program is designed to comply with the National

Flood Insurance Program, the Water Quality Act of 1987, the Georgia Water

Quality Control Act, and the Erosion and Sedimentation Control Act of

1975.

"The city of Griffin has

become the case study for how to do it right, a national model,"

says Roy Fowler, general manager of the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority,

the second largest purveyor in the state. (Cobb is working on its own

stormwater utility plan.)

"They made it a function

of service, not simply an additional tax. They are charging for the service

they are providing."

Absent a stormwater utility,

municipalities must comply with the Clean Water Act by funding stormwater

improvements from general revenues, such as property taxes or sales taxes,

which are not predictable or stable revenue. With a stormwater utility

fee, however, the cost of the remediation is directly allocated to the

cause of the impact, impervious cover, in this case.

The importance of equitably

charging all users remains the important concern in addressing the impacts

on the system. In addition to shifting from general revenues to user fees,

the stormwater utility rates incorporate some environmental impact in

the cost of land development and will encourage more efficient land use

while preserving property rights and limiting one-size-fits-all regulation.

[Sara Pilzer, an intern

with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, is a student at the University

of Georgia. The Georgia Public Policy Foundation is an independent think

tank that proposes practical, market-oriented approaches to public policy

to improve the lives of Georgians.]