The City of Sammamish will need to come up with about $500,000 in additional operating revenue each year in order to comply with new storm water regulations now being passed down by the Department of Ecology.

The regulations are identical to those being imposed on all cities in the state with a population of between 10,000 and 100,000 people, as Phase 2 of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) storm water program, initiated by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Phase 1 refers to the bigger cities, like Seattle and Tacoma. This part of the process of improving storm water management systems across America is largely completed.

But smaller cities like Sammamish and Issaquah face a big challenge in improving their storm water management practices to meet the requirements of the new permit.

A number of these requirements have already been met – minor administrative elements like filing of an annual report and a notice of intent.

But larger tasks will need to be completed by Phase 2 cities in the next few months, and they will be costly.

In Sammamish, one of the things the city will have to do is map its current storm water facilities, much of which were built prior to incorporation and a lot of which are unchartered by city staff.

According to Sammamish Public Works Director John Cunningham, a similar exercise carried out in Tukwila last year costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Cunningham said that although most city planners were in general agreement with the intention of the new regulations, to protect and improve our watersheds and more strictly control water quality, there were some aspects that were difficult to swallow.

“Obviously it is difficult that this is an unfunded mandate,” he said. “Essentially the department has said, ‘here are the new requirements, now go and raise the money from your residents.'”

According to a presentation given to council last week by Senior Stormwater Program Engineer Eric LaFrance, that money will be in the ballpark of $400,000 to $600,000 per year.

Although LaFrance stressed this week that those numbers were just draft projections, it is clear the city will either have to hire more staff, or consultants, to complete the work that is required.

Cunningham conceded that a rate increase might be one of the city’s only options.

“I would say we will have to increase rates,” Cunningham said. “To what level, I don’t know. We have a rate increase study group working on that at the moment. There isn’t really any other way to come up with an extra four hundred thousand dollars a year.”

The required work will include finding additional staff and training existing staff to enable the city to more frequently inspect sites and be more vigilant about detecting storm water violations.

It will also include a comprehensive public education program, to educate people on the impacts of what they do with water in their yards and businesses.

According to a study done in Shoreline, Kirkland, and Redmond recently, 50 percent of respondents did not know that what they put down storm water drains went untreated into our rivers, streams and lakes.

Cunningham said that another problem a number of cities had with the regulations was the excessive bureaucratic requirements, such as to not only conduct an education campaign, but then survey its effectiveness. He felt this was an inefficient use of funds.

Another point of contention is the stipulation that new development use “pre-European conditions” as a baseline for water retention – that being essentially a forested lot – a condition which for developers would be difficult to replicate.

A year ago the Department of Ecology gave Sammamish $75,000, part of which was used to conduct a ‘gap’ analysis, identify the difference between what the city was doing now and what it would have to do to meet the new regulations.

“That was something the legislature did to make the cities calm down a little,” Cunningham said.

The legislature had reason to be concerned – in 2007 the City of Sammamish was one of 37 cities to launch a lawsuit against the Department of Ecology, essentially to counter a lawsuit by People for Puget Sound and Puget Sound Keepers Alliance.

The lawsuit resulted in only slight alteration to the regulations.