EVERETT — Snohomish County risks sacrificing water quality along the Stillaguamish River and neglecting drainage problems in other rural areas if it moves ahead with a plan to combine three separate stormwater programs into one, a group of clean-water advocates has warned.
The county plan, floated earlier this spring, would merge separate utilities that address drainage and water quality along the Stillaguamish and Snohomish rivers, as well as in south Snohomish County. They’re currently operated as separate units.
Some county leaders say the change would save a half-million dollars per year through efficiency and with better service to boot.
A public hearing and possible vote is planned for Wednesday.
The plan doesn’t sit well with volunteers who help guide the decisions along the Stilly and other north county waterways. Dissolve the Clean Water District Advisory Board, they say, and the county would squander a trove of institutional knowledge.
The board includes representatives for local landowners, government agencies and businesses.
“I don’t know how much more efficient you can get than a citizens advisory board that works for the county for nothing,” said board member Steve Van Valkenburg, of Arlington.
Van Valkenburg, a retired agriculture teacher who represents the Snohomish Conservation District on the board, spoke during a hearing last month. Those proceedings are set to continue Wednesday.
He’s worried that the county’s urban areas would soak up the funding under the proposal, while the biggest stormwater needs might be in more sparsely populated areas with fewer people. He also questioned how the county arrived at the estimated $480,000 in yearly savings.
Will Hall, who took over last year as the county surface water management director, said he inherited an “obsolete and inefficient” bureaucracy. Hall said the consolidation plan is his best option for making government work better — and a step local governments already have taken elsewhere in the state. The stormwater fees of $90 for rural homes and $122 for urban homes would not change.
Hall said the estimated savings comes from saving staff time and not having to oversee three separate budgets.
“We added up specific hours of specific employees,” he said. “It’s even a conservative number.”
Money would still be spent in areas where it’s collected from ratepayers.
Hall said his staff will have to give the County Council an annual report detailing how money is being spent on projects throughout the county.
Normally far from the public eye, county stormwater staff played the lead role responding to flooding at Lake Serene this year after a blocked outlet pipe and record-setting wet weather caused lake levels to rise.
A division of the Public Works Department, there are 94 surface water staff positions and an annual budget of $36.6 million. Responsibilities include water quality, urban drainage and flood control. Fees are collected across all of unincorporated Snohomish County, except for the Tulalip area and Hat Island.
Miriam Lancaster favors some of the reforms Hall has recommended, but strongly opposes getting rid of the board, where she serves as a representative for homeowners.
The retired nurse got to see first hand the water-quality improvements at her home on Lake Ketchum, once the most polluted lake in the county. Homeowners there worked with county staff to impose a special fee to treat Lake Ketchum for polluted runoff from nearby farms. Problems persist, but the treatment helped reduce phosphorus levels and, in turn, the amount of algae.
“Great things can be accomplished when the county and citizens work cooperatively and respectfully together,” Lancaster said. “We can be successful when we keep our mutual focus on restoring our polluted waters that make us sick. The Lake Ketchum experience is an example of making what seems impossible, possible.”
The hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in Snohomish County Council chambers on the eighth floor of the Robert J. Drewel Building, 3000 Rockefeller Ave., Everett.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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