The city of Durango’s approach to stormwater management is largely reactionary: When storm drains become clogged, crews reshuffle their priorities to clean the drains. Infrastructure around the city is failing, and after heavy rains, debris is often swept across streets, parking lots and into riverways.
The Public Works Department is in desperate need of dedicated staff to implement a proper preventive maintenance program, Bob Lowry, interim Public Works director, said.
Besides two street sweeper operators in its streets division, Public Works lacks any staff dedicated to preventive maintenance to stormwater infrastructure, he said. And it lacks a dedicated funding source for managing its stormwater system.
He said the system consists of nearly 55 miles of pipe and 2,392 storm drainage inlets in curbs and gutters, in addition to natural drainage channels.
Residents have expressed concerns about sediment unloading into the Animas River after heavy rain and snow melt, which threatens ecology and wildlife, and flood-prone zones and failing stormwater infrastructure around town imperiling private and public property.
Public Works relies on the city’s general fund for continuous work on sediment mitigation and infrastructure repairs.
Last week, Lowry pitched City Council the idea of establishing a stakeholder committee tasked with identifying a suitable long-term funding source. Councilors will consider a resolution establishing such a group at their next meeting in November. In a presentation with photos of problem areas around town, he highlighted pipes clogged by debris, flood zones and erosion.
He said over the last decade, the city spent $2.8 million (including a $1.3 million grant) for stormwater projects. In the last three years, the city spent $134,433 for stormwater maintenance, excluding street sweeping.
The city has over $50 million in estimated capital improvement projects and $44 million worth of stormwater infrastructure that will need to be replaced over the next 50 years.
A dedicated stormwater maintenance fund would facilitate a crew of four additional staff and a supervisor, street sweeping, inspecting pipes and infrastructure with camera feeds, and inlet and pipe cleaning operations, he said.
He told The Durango Herald he is hopeful City Council will act on his recommendation to form a stakeholder committee that would be tasked with understanding stormwater needs and exploring funding options.
And, he hopes such a committee and the Durango Financial Advisory Board would conclude stormwater management fees that would be charged through residents’ and businesses’ utility accounts are the best funding option.
Stormwater fees are the most common funding source for stormwater management, according to a survey Public Works conducted across Colorado communities, well over 70 of which implement stormwater fees, he said.
Fees are typically “based upon the impervious area on a parcel of land,” he said. In layman’s terms, that means fees are based on how much stormwater runoff is generated by each parcel of land.
For a typical single-family residence with a yard, the “impervious area” that would determine fees would be the house’s footprint in addition to a driveway and garage, should those be present.
Commercial properties such as grocery stores and department stores create much more runoff, and they’d pay higher fees proportionate to the runoff associated with their footprints.
Fees range from as little as $2 per month or as high as $39 per month, Lowry said.
Durango resident and former Trout Unlimited Five Rivers chapter president Buck Skillen approached City Council last month to once again call attention to heavy sediment unloading into Lightner Creek and the Animas River.
He was speaking on behalf of the Trout Unlimited Five Rivers chapter, which last year sounded the alarm to City Council about the need to mitigate sediment unloading from Perins Canyon that ultimately ends up in the Animas River, posing a threat to trout and other wildlife. He used Lightner Creek to demonstrate the city’s need for bolstered stormwater management.
He said a sediment capture basin adjacent to Rosemary Lane off Highway 160 in west Durango is one area the city could do better in maintaining by cleaning out sediment and debris after heavy rainstorms.
The bioswale and stream centered between north and southbound Tech Center Drive is another problem area. Sediment washes down Perins Canyon and into the bioswale, which dumps into Lightner Creek. A sediment capture basin of sorts is present, but Skillen said it’s not well designed.
He said most of the sediment consists of Mancos shale, which the U.S. Geological Survey describes as sandy, dark-gray or lead-colored shale, named for the shale’s presence in the La Plata Mountains and Mancos Valley near Mancos west of Durango.
Skillen said the Five Rivers chapter is willing to partner with the city to redesign or design a proper sediment capture basin at the top of Tech Center Drive. He said the Five Rivers chapter has funding available.
Lowry said Trout Unlimited is particularly concerned about erosion and sedimentation that gets into the creeks and the Animas River. But other stormwater issues persist about town.
“We have flooding issues throughout town. We have erosion and sedimentation problems. We have existing infrastructure that has failed (and) needs to be replaced. And all of those things will be presented to the committee, if the council chooses to appoint one, so they can get an idea of what we're dealing with,” he said.
The city currently has just two dedicated staff for stormwater issues – one engineer and one technician.
“We don't have any maintenance people dedicated to stormwater management, per se. The street division of our operations section does all the work,” he said. “It's basically the active work after a heavy rain, they go out and clean things up, and that's pretty much all they do in terms of the operations and maintenance for stormwater.”
Public Works spokeswoman Laura Reick said the intersection of Avenida del Sol and Roosa Avenue adjacent to Schneider Park is just one area where flooding events occur and damage public and private property. Any clean up efforts after such an event occurs come with attached costs, she added.
Lowry said he knows of examples of collapsed pipes that were damaged by directional boring work for fiber installations where the pipes were pierced and debris fell into the pipes, creating a damming effect.
But he doesn’t have a firm grasp of the full extent of issues. The only way to identify an issue is by running a camera through the pipes; but when a pipe is full of sediment or debris, it must be cleared before a camera can be run through.
He said he doesn’t know why the city hasn’t sought long-term funding and solutions to stormwater maintenance. But he said city councils turnover regularly, and if councils aren’t made aware of stormwater needs, there won’t be any actions to address them.
“I have no idea why it's not been dealt with in the past. It may be that nobody's ever gone before the council and said, ‘Here's the problem and here's a recommended (solution),’” he said. “It’s easy to dump a problem in somebody's lap, but if you don't have a potential solution, nothing happens.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
