There is general agreement that Oahu’s stormwater drainage network has critical failings and, given most scientific forecasts of changing weather patterns, that it’s ill-equipped to manage the heavier, more frequent rains that are ahead.
Further, working to decrease the amount of runoff from storms also prompts the city to discourage paving on so much of the ground, so that more of it could seep into, and replenish, the island’s aquifer of water to drink. City officials are worried that all the development has increased the draw of water from the aquifer, without allowing it to recharge.
This does suggest that a much-greater outlay of city funds will be needed for upgrades and management than currently is allowed in regular city budgeting. Competition for funds, undeniably, will be tough, especially with the impending costs of rail, and now, widespread uncertainty over COVID-19.
Some 2,000 other cities have opted in on a similar solution: establishing a new stormwater utility, with a new fee to be tacked onto property tax billing.
But the timing is disastrous. The coronavirus pandemic has turned life routines and economic activity upside-down. Prospects or tax revenues are unclear at best.
Plainly, there is a need for much more discussion by the Council, involving additional public input, about the workload of such an expanded government entity and whether its mission could be accomplished efficiently. An open-ended mission statement is not going to fly, especially not now.
Politicians hate pushing additional taxes and new fees under the best of circumstances. The current conditions, an election year paired with an unprecedented period of fiscal uncertainty, are the worst.
Ross Sasamura, director of the city’s Department of Facility Maintenance (DFM), said his agency is now tasked with the upkeep of stormwater drains, which does not have shared connections with the city sewer system. Sasamura also said during a meeting with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser editorial board, the stormwater drains are seen as having separate concerns from sanitary systems handled by the Department of Environmental Services. And because the property impact on stormwater runoff is unconnected with its use of drinking water, it’s not the concern of the Board of Water Supply, either.
The city spends about $92 million each year on stormwater-related costs, roughly $70 million from property taxes and $22 million from the highway fund.
Sasamura makes the argument that a separate utility, with a dedicated source of funds from a special fee, would be better able to do the long-range planning required for improvements. Now it depends on annual spending asks that aren’t at all guaranteed.
He compares the proposed utility to what the water board’s dedicated fee enables: a long-range program of water-line improvements to bolster a system that deteriorated over decades.
That is a pertinent comparison. But before the water board enacted its fee increases, there were detailed plans of exactly what work it intended to do and how the increase would roll out to pay for it.
The city DFM has suggested a possible menu of fees ranging from $5-$7 monthly for properties of less than 2,000 square feet of impervious area all the way up to $22-$28 for lots with more than 4,200 square feet of paved area. The way owners would reduce their fees would be through credits earned by reducing impermeable areas, collecting rainwater and other means.
And the stormwater fee would apply to all property owners — even those now exempt from property taxes, such as government and churches.
Sasamura said current staff may be doubled, but what improvements would the money buy, exactly? Before the city embarks on expanding a government entity with fee-raising power, taxpayers need to know that much, at least.
Correction: An earlier version of this editorial wrongly indicated the stormwater and city sewer system had shared connections.
