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MASTER PLAN OVERVIEW |
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Stormwater Master Plan |
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Origin of Plan The engineering firm of Burns & McDonald completed the Stormwater Master Plan in 1996.
Because of the severe flooding experienced in 1993, a storm water task force formed and recommended a stormwater master plan.
Known drainage problems collected from various sources, including City records, the 1993 Stormwater Task Force report, and the residents of Lawrence aided in creating the 1996 Stormwater Master Plan. The consultant compiled public input using a questionnaire distributed to participants in the public meetings held in October 1994 and made available through several civic and neighborhood organizations. They published the same questionnaire in the Lawrence Journal World in December 1995.
The capital improvement program divided priority groups into three phases. As a basis for determining revenue, needs and options the consultant evaluated program durations of five and ten years. |
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Expected outcomes from the plan The plan set to analyze the performance capability of the existing major drainage system, recommend improvements to existing facilities and policies, and analyze financing options including creating a stormwater utility.
Detailed expectations of the 1996 Stormwater Master Plan were to recommend improvement projects where existing system deficiencies had one or more of the following adverse effects: building flooding at 25-year or more frequent intervals; overflow of public streets by the 2-year storm for a time duration greater than 10 to 15 minutes; structural failure occurred or is impending; and, uncontrolled discharge of water from the public right-of-way onto adjacent private property results in erosion which could endanger buildings or have negative impacts on the use of property, or creates a recurring nuisance.
The plan set to complete the following overall goals: 1) Provide an equal minimum level of service to all citizens as soon as possible, 2) Upgrade the drainage system to meet criteria standards for a higher level of service, 3) Improve the system to yield the best practical benefit for the earliest investment, 4) Construct projects in an order such that any isolated improvement does not add to an existing problem or create a new problem elsewhere and 5) Benefit as many individual citizens as early as practical to maintain continuing support for a prioritized program of improving drainage service.
Projects listed in the plan address areas of frequent flooding first. In addition, when other public improvement projects overlapped or were located in proximity to priority storm water projects, those project scopes were expanded to address storm water projects subject to funding constraints. |
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Funding Cash and debt financing were the two alternatives recommended for financing the improvement projects. The consultant recommended that funding for the improvement program, regardless of financing technique selected, use revenue from the current Stormwater Utility Fund.
The consultant recommended that the stormwater fee start at $4.00/ERU. At the time of adoption, the city enacted a fee of $2.00/ERU. Industry defines ERU as equivalent residential unit. The following table provides a historical timeline for fee adjustments to the stormwater fee.
All funding has come from the Stormwater Utility Fund except for the Maple Street Pump Station, which used Sales Tax Infrastructure revenue.
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Status Update The 1996 Stormwater Master Plan recommended 41 projects as capital improvements. The consultant developed these recommendations after consideration of the benefits, performance and cost of a broad range of options including land use or zoning changes; drainage easement, removal of damageable improvements, detention; open channels; and enclosed storm drains. All recommended improvement projects are structural improvements to the storm drainage infrastructure scattered throughout the City. The consultant split plan projects into three groups: Group I, Group II and Group III. The following table shows the parameters for each respective group.
To maximize funding the City’s stormwater crew completed Project #6 - Ridge Court. Other smaller projects completed by the stormwater crew include: a diversion channel between Kasold Drive and Atchison Avenue, 10th & Mississippi, 14th & Tennessee, 11th & Mississippi, Cattleman Court and 17th Street between Tennessee & Kentucky and Perry Street between 5th and 6th Streets.
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Future To complete a systematic analysis of the existing storm sewer network, video inspection of the entire system is underway. A standardized condition assessment of each individual pipe segment occurs with each video inspection. This will aid in prioritizing problem areas. Verification of asset information includes material type, size and location. Field staff has deployed both video trucks to optimize the time needed to assess the entire system. Projected completion of the asset inventory is expected within the next four years. The asset management software Lucity will also help determine patterns of repeated maintenance areas within a watershed, thus guiding programmatic asset management and prioritization of effort and resources.
Staff expects that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will institute more stringent regulatory requirements for clean water. With the renewal of each Municipal Separate Sewer System (MS4) Permit, requirements become more stringent. On average, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) updates the permit every five years. Past changes to the permit include requirements to conduct erosion and sediment control inspections, collect stormwater samples during rain events and monitor water for the total maximum daily loads (TMDL’s) of sediments, nutrients and bacteria. Future requirements include tighter monitoring of programs that include post construction best management practices (BMP’s), illicit discharge, inspection of privately owned structural BMP’s and collecting stormwater samples for rainfall events exceeding ¼” of rainfall. This is a change from the current requirement of collecting samples for rainfall events exceeding ½” of rainfall.
Utilization of a new storm water rate model study will also aid in identifying revenue vs operational and maintenance expenditures.
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