Located on the shores of Commencement Bay, the City of Tacoma is an industrial port city and the third largest (pop. 220K) in the State of Washington. Because Tacoma and dozens of regional cities have a direct impact on surface waters feeding into Puget Sound, the increasing costs of meeting National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Municipal Stormwater Permit requirements have, in recent years, led to corresponding pressure on stormwater user rates. Many permittees have not updated their stormwater rates or rate structures as both the level of service provided, and the cost of providing that service have risen. As a result of these conditions, there was a need for guidance for permittees on both the range of current industry best practices with regards to stormwater rate/credit structures, as well as direction on the process of evaluating and selecting appropriate stormwater rate/credit structures.
Our team convened and coordinated a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) made up of a range of municipal permittees to ensure broad applicability and relevance of the project findings. The committee provided both review of work completed and direction for subsequent tasks. As a postscript, our team was invited to presented project findings at the 2023 Municipal Stormwater Conference in Wenatchee, WA.
As part of a study funded by a Water Quality Stormwater Grant administered by the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) and the City of Tacoma, our team worked on a project that produced the following:
- Conducted a comprehensive benchmarking survey of over sixty Washington state cities and counties that documented a wide range of current rate structure, connection charge and rate credit approaches.
- Documented industry best practices regarding stormwater rate structures, rate credits and approaches to address environmental justice within stormwater programs.
- Developed a framework for evaluating a utility’s existing stormwater rate structure and rate credit programs against industry best practices as well as utility-specific prioritized objectives.
- Prepared and delivered case study results for the City of Tacoma which evaluated the City’s rate structure and rate credit programs against industry best practices and City-defined prioritized objectives and provided recommendations that could help address cost-of-service equity, social equity/environmental justice and administrative simplicity, among other objectives.