City of Brunswick
Stormwater Management Program
Stormwater Management Program (SWMP) and
SW Utility Overview
Stormwater runoff drains off rooftops, driveways, sidewalks, parking lots, roads, compacted soil, gravel, and other surfaces that prohibit the infiltration of rainfall into the ground. The stormwater runoff then flows into the City drainage system and, eventually, into our local marshes and rivers. Most developed properties in the City contribute stormwater runoff to the drainage system, or they rely on proper function of the City’s street
system and associated drainage network to ingress and egress their property. Stormwater runoff contributes to flooding problems, and washes chemicals, debris, sediment, trash and other pollutants into the City drainage systems and our local surface water bodies. The City of Brunswick is responsible for collection and conveyance of stormwater from the developed properties within the city. There is an extensive network of collection inlets, subsurface pipes, and open ditches which convey the stormwater away from the properties and to the marshes and rivers. There is a significant cost associated with the operation and management of this drainage system as well as the state and federal regulatory requirements associated with the discharge of the stormwater from the system.
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Management of stormwater runoff has become an increasingly important responsibility for local governments such as the City of Brunswick. Existing stormwater regulations, combined with aging infrastructure and deferred capital improvement projects, have driven the City’s need to develop and implement a more comprehensive Storm Water Management Program (SWMP) to maintain compliance with state and federal storm water management regulations as well as address drainage system maintenance issues and high priority capital projects. The City’s SWMP is responsible for the management and regulation of all drainage issues within the City. The SWMP must undertake various activities including the cleaning of ditches, pipes, and other storm water conveyance systems; replacement of aging culverts and drainage structures; and construction of new drainage systems to increase or improve stormwater conveyance capacity. A Storm Water Utility (SWU) is being formed to more effectively manage the overall SWMP and to fund the program through a system of user fees that will be dedicated solely to addressing stormwater management and drainage issues.
The SWU is established as an enterprise fund within the city’s SWMP. The SWU will assess a user fee on each developed property within the City of Brunswick. The amount of the fee will be the same for all single-family residential (SFR) properties, and will be based on the amount of impervious surface on the property for all non-single family residential properties (NSFR). All developed properties contribute storm water runoff to the city’s drainage system; therefore all developed properties will receive a bill for SWU user fees.
It is the city’s opinion that this SWU user fee is the most fair system as is distributes the burden of cost for the SWMP on all users of the system, and user fees are assessed based on the properties’ use, or demand, placed on the system.
