Source:  Watchdog.org

ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. — When it rains – a rare, hard, heavy rain, enough to turn a low lying area near his Brighton business swampy – Roger Allgeier and his wife Verna get out the hose and the pump and help the runoff on its way to the Platte River by way of a storm drain in front of Brighton Feed and Saddlery.

It’s part of the municipal storm water system, for which the Allgeiers pay about $60 in fees annually.

So imagine the shock when they found out they will be charged thousands of dollars for a similar storm-water fee on properties they own in unincorporated Adams County — where there aren’t even any storm drains. Or other county services.

Chapter 4 | Source: Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC)

The best-designed stormwater pollution management plan will flounder without sufficient community support and funding. Community support is often necessary for official government support, although in many of the cases studies the government took the lead and the broader support followed. A major aim of many public education programs (and a critical task for local community and environmental organizations) is to build this political support. An equal emphasis is needed to establish a stable source of funding to keep a program moving forward, once implemented. While the two often go hand-in-hand -- adequate funding almost always requires political support and, conversely, a healthy community consensus on the need for runoff pollution control will generally lead to sufficient funds -- the traditional funding mechanisms available to local governments demand continuous political support, which can be difficult at times. Nonetheless, there are several approaches a municipality can take to establish a dedicated funding source. This chapter describes one of these approaches -- stormwater utilities -- and discusses the authority of local governments to implement them.