Proposed stormwater fixes to cost millions of dollars

Presenting the final results of a Point Roberts drainage study at the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee meeting on May 15, county engineer Eris Vavra was blunt in his assessment – it would cost a lot of money to fix even some of the problems and where that money would come from is far from clear.

In all, there were 94 identified problem areas with 30 areas considered to be capital projects. Of those, 13 were considered highest priority and would cost $22,280,000 to fix. The top three in terms of expense would be Gulf Road at $7.27 million, Maple Beach at $2.88 million and Teller Road at $2.69 million.

County staff expressed a glum realism when it came to paying for any or all of the projects. “To pay for these out of the Road Fund, which is kind of the most obvious way to pay for them, they’ll have to go up against the list of projects we’ve already programmed, or they’ll be programmed in the future. Then they’ll have to be compared to those and making sure that the projects we’re doing here fit into the grand scheme of Whatcom County right now, where we are already deprogramming projects. We’re making tough decisions about what we can and can’t afford to, just to make sure the road fund stays solvent and that we can continue to operate and do the things we need to do. So that’s not a good news for anybody here,” Vavra told the audience.

One possibility would be to create a stormwater utility district, similar to what Birch Bay has done. Local improvement districts (LID) can be created under one or two ways. The first would be to present a petition to Whatcom County Council asking for an LID to be established in order to fund stormwater improvements. That would require the signatures of owners of 51 percent of the affected properties.

Alternatively, county council could itself propose the formation of an LID and hold a public hearing to get input from affected property owners. It would pass unless the owners of 60 percent of the proposed land area objected to its formation.

Currently, property owners in the Birch Bay water management district pay approximately $110 per residential unit equivalent annually. Whether local property owners would want to saddle themselves with extra taxes could depend on how serious they perceive the problems to be. One of the highest ranked projects is limited to Diane Circle and that alone would cost $1.03 million to fix.

PRCAC members will next face the issue of how any of these proposed projects will be paid for.