Agenda - Council - 02/13/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Metro Local Water Management Task Force Report December 15, 7989 The las, should be amended to clearly give WMOs the abiliO, to manage public drainage systems under the Metropolitan Water Management Act. WMOs should retain the flexibilio' to decide on a ditch by ditch basis which management option would be in the best interests of affected landowners. Counties should retain their current aulhoriO' to decide whether to transferjurisdictlon of existing drainage .vA,s- tems to WMOs, but WMOs should be encouraged to accept responsibiliO, for these ~,stems to facilitate coordinated surface water management..: Recommendations for Issue 4: #15 Amend the law to require tile BWSR to adopt rules ti~at require all metro ditch authorities to conduct an overall evaluation of the condition of each public ditch and make a report to the BWSR before Jul), 2, 2992 which describes the general condition of each ditch following the criteria under Minnesota Statutes, section 106A.015. #16 Amend the law to clearly gi~,e WMOs the authority to manage existing public drainage systems under their jurisdiction under the Metropolitan Water Manage- ment, Act, and to clarify the procedure for making the transition from 1064 to "509'. The transition process should recognize existing drainage rights and existing ditch fund balances. ISSUE 5 The appropriate method for financing capital improvement projects. Findings for Issue 5: Traditionally, most water management projects have been financed by special as- sessments on benefitted property, or with assistance from the state or federal govern- ment. Local drainage ditches and storm sewers that benefitted a relatively small area of land were generally paid for through special assessments. Major flood con- trol projects involving river channelization or reservoir construction often received state or federal assistance. In recent years alternative financing mechanisms have appeared. The Metropolitan Water Management Act provided authority to finance water manage- ment projects using ad valorem levies over contributing watershed areas. A similar mechanism has been in the WD law for many years, but has been used by only a few metro WDs having large tax bases. The concept of the stormwater utility fee is also fairly new and has been implemented by only a few cities. Under the utility fee ap- pro'ch, a formula is applied to each parcel to compute how much surface runoff it generates. The city's stormwater planning and implementation budget is then pro- rated among all parcels according to their runoff contribution. The resulting fee is placed on the landowner's municipal water bill. Page