Augusta Engineering Director says stormwater fee is going excellent

admin • Jul 30, 2016 News

Friday, July 29, 2016
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) –When Tyrone Butler moved the Augusta Mini Theatre to this piece of land it was run down and overgrown. Now it has a big parking lot and even a detention pond, but his stormwater fee bill is $320 dollars a month and he hasn’t paid it.

“We cannot afford that fee every month, but we have applied for some credits,” Butler said.

Butler says the city told them the mini theatre needed to clean out their pond to get those credits, but doing that and paying the fee could cost them $12,000 dollars just this year alone. With plans to expand in the future, that cost is weighing on them.

“We didn’t do this to you might say be charged,” Butler said.

Engineering director Abie Ladson says overall the new fee program is going excellent, bringing in nearly 3 million dollars in the past three months. They have collected 80 to 85% of the fee and the city expects that number to go higher. Even with all that money the city’s only hired four of 9 stormwater maintenance coordinators.

“As the third quarter and the fourth quarter gets here it’s going to be even more exciting,” Ladson said.

For the first three months of the year, only 50 feet of ditches were cleaned out, but since April that number has jumped dramatically to more than 26,000 feet. This project on Smith Drive in south Augusta cost $24,000 dollars to replace the storm drain line. 21 other structures were repaired too and 25 projects were designed in that same time frame.

Tyrone says he agrees with the fee, but doesn’t think non profits and churches should be paying it.

“You’re really turning around and giving the money back to the city, the same city that’s helping you do what you do,” Butler said.

Ladson says they are looking to buy new equipment with some of the money from the stormwater fee.

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Source: News