Stormwater issues need more funding

and a full-time manager, report advises

The Town Council received results of a study of Smithfield's stormwater infrastructure Tuesday night that recommends setting aside more money for fixes and hiring a full-time manager to see projects through.

Doug Jewell, principal from Jewell Engineering Consultants of Kernersville, walked the council through his firm's "Stormwater Action Management Plan" --- a report paid for by a $70,000 grant to the town from North Carolina's Golden LEAF Foundation.

He showed the council and the audience pictures of Smithfield's deteriorating drainage system --- things like braced retaining walls along Spring Branch (pictured right) that "eventually will fail"; sinkholes developing around catch basins on the edge of streets; "stream bank degradation" along several creeks; and corroded corrugated drain pipes beneath major thoroughfares that, he said, are "well beyond their useful life."

The town's General Fund, Mr. Jewell noted, currently earmarks money to fix failing structures, but not enough to take care of all the town's infrastructure deficiencies. "There's a lot out there that's antiquated," he said.

One way to address that, he continued, is to increase General Fund appropriations provided by all the town's taxpayers. A relatively new alternative is an annual assessment collected from property owners that's based on the square footage of impervious surfaces on their tracts of real estate.

Impervious surfaces are man-made fixtures like roofs and parking lots and driveways that prevent rainwater from being absorbed directly into the earth, thereby resulting in greater volumes of stormwater runoff that accelerates flooding.

Other communities in North Carolina are moving toward the new option, Mr. Jewell noted. Typically, he said, stormwater assessments are running between $3 and $5 a month for what he termed an "Equivalent Residential Unit," or ERU (larger commercial properties are assessed for many more ERUs than a homeowner). In Smithfield, he projected, $5 a month per ERU could raise $1 million annually.

Besides a new funding mechanism for stormwater management along with a full-time overseer, the Jewell report calls for a citizens advisory committee to help identify stormwater issues and alliances with nearby towns and cities to develop "regional approaches" to lessen flooding.

The Town Council listened intently to Mr. Jewell's presentation but took no action at Tuesday's session, other than to "accept" the report to satisfy terms of the Golden LEAF grant award.

The Golden LEAF Foundation is a nonprofit set up to receive a portion of North Carolina's funding from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with cigarette manufacturers. Those funds have been used to support projects boosting economic opportunity in historically tobacco-dependent communities such as Johnston County. By the way, LEAF stands for Long-term Economic Advancement Foundation (which gives the title "Golden LEAF Foundation" redundancy).

To learn more about Golden LEAF, visit the organization's website>