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Official calls for new utility, new fee

ELKINS — An Elkins official is calling for the creation of a storm water utility, which would be financed through a fee charged to all businesses and residences within city limits.

Operations Manager Bob Pingley led a storm water management discussion with Elkins City Council recently.

“I think everybody’s heard residents complain that these latest storms that we’ve had have created drainage problems for the city,” Pingley said. “I think you could go to any particular neighborhood and point out problems. I think the residents are looking to the city to come up with some answers and solutions.

“I’d like to ask you to begin consideration of a couple things to try to resolve this problem,” he said. “The first step I think council needs to consider, a lot of places in the city … there’s been no control and no management of the storm water system. So as a result, nothing’s been put in with a larger goal in mind.”

Pingley asked council to draft a set of new regulations.

“The city really needs a set of storm water management regulations that we can work with to try to keep these problems from occurring down the road,” he said. “To give us a framework for permitting, inspections, for intelligent management and growth of our storm water system …

“There is nothing in any of our codes, any of our regulations, to stop any business or home owner or property owner from doing whatever they like to storm water on their property… We need some sort of control over the situation.”

Pingley said many nearby cities have enacted a set of storm water regulations.

“The city of Buckhannon has a pretty basic one. The city of Morgantown’s is 25 pages long. We just need to find something workable for the city,” he said.

“I’m asking you to refer this to committee… (Code Enforcement Officer) Phil (Isner) and I will work on a draft of an ordinance that we believe we can work with.”

Pingley noted that a set of storm water regulations would just be the first of two necessary steps, however.

“That’s going to help with problems down the road,” he said. “That doesn’t fix what we have now. The only way I can see to do that is to devote resources to it. The only way to do that, at least in my opinion, is to create a storm water utility.

“The storms are heavier now. There’s no question about it. That’s not going to change. It’s probably going to get worse.”

Pingley requested that council create a new city utility.

“I’m asking you to give consideration to the formation of a storm water utility. It will need to have a steady revenue stream, which means a fee on every business, every residence in the city,” he said.

“I can’t begin to guess right now what the numbers would be, but that would allow us to devote resources to solving some of these problems. If we could get a small crew together that did nothing but pull ditches, and clean culverts.

“There’s no way to solve all these problems overnight, there’s too many of them. But this would be a step in the right direction,” Pingley said.

Council made no decision on the suggestions.

Elkins City Council will meet at 7 p.m. today at City Hall.

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