In a normal year, more than 1.5 million gallons of stormwater gush from the roof and parking spaces of Chattanooga's City Hall, run to a street grate and are carried to a sewer treatment plant, then the Tennessee River.
There's enough water from this one building and its parking lots to fill the tanks of one and a half Tennessee Aquariums. When the same rains fall on the entire city, overflows often send sewage-tainted stormwater straight to the river -- a drinking water source for thousands of people.
But a new Chattanooga stormwater permit from the state, now in draft form, will change the way any new development in the city will be built.
PDF: Draft permit PDF: Inspection report
The permit would require the first inch of rain falling in a 72-hour period be kept on-site at any new building, subdivision or business. The proposal calls for green-design concepts to accomplish the requirement.
In Chattanooga, where normal yearly rainfall is 54.5 inches, 80 percent of rain events total at least 1 inch in 72 hours, according to the state officials who drafted the permit.
"There is no more 'away,'" for the water to run to, said David Crockett, director of Chattanooga's Office of Sustainability.
"Every time we paved the equivalent of a football field, we created another 1 million gallons of stormwater runoff. And that runoff runs down the street to a storm grate and goes away -- somewhere," he said. "Well, 'somewhere' is another hole in the ground, and we're running out of holes."
Chattanooga already faces the prospect of costly fines and fixes for federal water quality rules violated for years, and this permit rule is the newest ripple in the city's legacy of being the region's drainage basin.
It also is the penalty for being built atop aging pipes and ditches that combine sewer and stormwater runoff in the heart of the city along the edge of the Tennessee River.
THE PERFECT STORM
With a wastewater collection model known as a combined sewer and stormwater system and a network of aging water and sewer pipes spread over diverse terrain, Chattanooga taxpayers and ratepayers may have to spend more than $200 million over the next decade to upgrade stormwater services, sanitary sewers and water systems.
The tally could go up if regulators slap the city with hefty penalties for its prolonged failure to meet past water quality commitments for stormwater runoff.
The city already tripled stormwater fees for homeowners and raised sewer fees for all water users last fall, adding another $7.32 in monthly fees for the typical household. Although the City Council pared the original rate hike last fall, stormwater and sewer fees rose by thousands of dollars for some businesses, churches and schools. Mayor Ron Littlefield is expected to ask for more stormwater rate increases for businesses this year.
Tennessee-American Water and other area water utility districts also are looking at rate increases this year to continue to maintain and upgrade their drinking water systems.
Combined with a proposed 33 percent jump in city property taxes, the higher fees for water and sewer services have sparked protests from taxpayers and business leaders.
"It seems like everywhere you turn fees and taxes are going up at a time when businesses and families are still in a fragile economic condition," said Ray Childers, president of the Chattanooga Manufacturers Association and a member of the citizens panel that helped revamp the city's stormwater fee schedule last winter. "The only thing that is not going up for manufacturing businesses is their selling price, and there is a limit to how much you can cut to absorb all of these extra expenses."
INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT
The city's Public Works Department already has a list of $14.3 million of capital projects, including $4 million to repair a collapsed drainage system on South Broad Street, nearly $2 million for flood studies and maps and $7.8 million in line items for upgraded drainage systems on Hickory Valley Road, Dartmouth Street and Chapman Road.
But when the city rolled back part of this year's original stormwater fees for nonprofit groups and commercial businesses, most of those projects were stalled.
"All told, we've spent $105 million since 1989 on collection improvements," Jerry Stewart, director of Chattanooga's division of waste resources, said.
About $77 million of that amount was paid with fees charged to Chattanooga residents and businesses. City officials were hoping to lessen the cost of future improvements with a five-year, $125 million plan to upgrade the way rainwater is collected after it runs off buildings, homes and parking lots.
With the new draft permit, costs could shift even more to the public.
The new development designs to hold stormwater on-site and keep it out of sewer lines will fall to developers and buyers.
Engineer and occasional developer Mike Price said the proposal probably will add $15,000 to $30,000 to a two- or three-acre site.
"And it wouldn't surprise me if it's over $100,000 for a big site," he said. "What's being proposed works great in Florida and places with sandy, silty soils, but not so well in Tennessee where you've got rocky, cherty soils that perk about as well as concrete."
City officials argue the stormwater and sewer service is a utility and should be paid for the same as electricity or water.
"We put a pipe to your home to carry away the water," Mr. Crockett said. "It runs out of your driveway to the street and into a hole and into that pipe. Somebody had to get it (away from the house and other residences). That's us."
RISING RATESChattanoogans are facing higher bills for stormwater, sewer and other city services.* The stormwater fee was more than tripled last fall from $3 to $9.60 a month for city residences.* The sanitary sewer rate was raised last November by 3 percent from an average $23.05 a month to $23.75 per month.* Mayor Ron Littlefield has proposed a 33 percent jump in property taxes for this year, raising the property tax rate in the city by 64 cents per $100 of assessed property value.IT'S JUST RAINWATER?* Developed sites, such as subdivisions and commercial shopping centers, significantly can alter how water flows or settles at a site. The result can harm streams, lakes, rivers and even sewage treatment itself by overwhelming the biology of treatment.* Generally, development increases areas where water cannot soak into the ground. With nowhere to go, the water becomes its own force, picking up pollutants such as fertilizers or sewage.* Development and redevelopment also significantly can reduce groundwater replenishment, leading to lower water tables and reductions in stream levels between storms.Source: U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyHIGH, LOW MARKS FOR STORMWATER PROGRAM* 1990 -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issues regulations for stormwater runoff for cities such as Chattanooga with more than 100,000 residents.* 1993 -- Chattanooga begins collecting stormwater fees based upon size of buildings and parking lots. New parking lot standards are adopted* 1999 -- Chattanooga gets new stormwater permit; city adopts landscaping ordinance for new parking lots.* 2003 -- Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation inspects Chattanooga stormwater program and issues notice of violation against the city.* 2006 -- Consent order issued and city agrees to list of 23 major program improvements.* 2008 -- TDEC inspects Chattanooga stormwater program.* 2009 -- TDEC issues order, citing 57 violations of state requirements. EPA and the Department of Justice ask TDEC to put the order on hold pending their own look at the city. The city raises stormwater fees.* 2010 -- City Council agrees with recommendations of advisory blue ribbon panel and cuts initial fees for businesses and nonprofit groups. Regulators prepare new compliance agreement with city. City Council considers another fee increase.Sources: Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, city of ChattanoogaPERMIT REVIEW* Tennessee regulators sent a draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit to Chattanooga on April 30.* Chattanooga was given 25 days to review the permit and respond.* City officials sought and received an extension until June 18.Source: Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation
Robert Karesh, stormwater coordinator for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, said the city is on the right track in trying to introduce greener ways to keep stormwater out of the sewer lines.
"This is the guidance we're getting from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency," he said. "And it's similar to new permits we're writing for other cities across the state."
A similar permit change already is in review for the smaller systems, such as Red Bank and Hamilton County, that contribute to Chattanooga and other metro area wastewater treatment systems.
A RIVER RUNS THROUGHT IT
Moccasin Bend Sewage Treatment Plant can treat up to 140 million gallons of wastewater per day.
But when rains come, the stormwater swirls into the sewers and swamps the system that normally would carry the residential and commercial sewage to the plant.
When the pipes and the plant can't handle the flood, the result is overflows from manholes and other low points. Despite a decade of building temporary underground CSOs -- combined sewer overflow storage facilities -- many of the overflows eventually reach the river untreated.
Mr. Stewart said that in all of 2008 Moccasin Bend officials logged 107 raw sewage overflows from the city's sewage system.
Not all of the overflows prompt notices of violations from regulators. But an order issued in June against the city's sewage treatment system stated that a regulatory inspection in September 2008 identified 57 violations of the city's permit.
In 2009, the plant violated its permit 17 times, according to records. Seven of those violations occurred in September, and five happened in December.
State regulators, talking last week about the new draft permit to replace the current one that expired in 2001, said the city long has been under a commissioner's order to comply with state and federal stormwater regulations.
Chattanooga already has paid $50,000 in fines and agreed to pay -- in lieu of fines -- for $100,000 worth of low-income house-to-street sewer lines, according to TDEC spokeswoman Tisha Calabrese-Benton.
The city still may face an enforcement lawsuit from EPA and the Department of Justice, Mr. Littlefield conceded earlier this year, just days after an electrical arc shut down the operation of a main downtown overflow facility pump.
The result of that one overflow was 137 million gallons of sewage-laced stormwater flushed to the river.
NOT JUST CHATTANOOGA
Long-term sewer and stormwater treatment problems increasingly are coming under scrutiny throughout the nation.
Others also involve the Department of Justice. Examples include Nashville and, most recently, New Orleans.
Two years ago in Nashville, the Justice Department announced a settlement expected to cost the metro area $300 million to $400 million. In January, the Department of Justice and New Orleans announced a lawsuit settlement that had been on hold since Hurricane Katrina struck.
The Justice Department and other regulators have been close-mouthed about possible enforcements in Chattanooga.
In February, Ms. Calabrese-Benton, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, said the notice of violation state regulators filed against Chattanooga in June had been put "on hold" because the EPA and the Department of Justice want to weigh in.
"EPA has expressed interest in Chattanooga, and our order is on hold," she said.
EPA spokeswoman Davina Marracinni said she, too, cannot comment on the Department of Justice interest or enforcement actions.
"That could, of course, compromise our case," she said.
DOJ spokesman Andrew Ames said there is no "public" information available now on the Justice Department's look at Chattanooga.
Staff writer Cliff Hightower contributed to this story.
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