The City of Peoria is forming a new group to explore ways to reduce storm-water runoff. It's called the OneWater Committee:
The group includes private property and business owners, and environmental advocates. It will look at the impact of adding a stormwater utility fee city-wide. The idea is to help pay for likely hundreds of millions of dollars in looming unfunded combined sewer overflow mandates from the EPA. City Manager Patrick Urich says the goal is pay for upgrades that can handle four-inches of rainfall in one storm:
“That amounts to about 37-million-gallons of storm-water runoff, the equivalent of about 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools that we have to capture.”
Urich says a utility fee could also help pay for drainage projects outside of the sewer overflow area. He says the group will also hold public input meetings starting next month on proposed ‘green’ solutions to stormwater upgrades.
