05-08-08: Catching up with stormwater at Wrightsville

(c) The Lumina News

By Jenna Jones, Staff Writer

WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH -- Stormwater has long been an additional responsibility for coastal communities.

Controlling runoff and aiding in water quality management has become essential in keeping our water safe for all of its many uses, and pollutants that have readily corrupted our stormwater supplies have led to more intense federal mandates for our water’s protection.

Steve Dellies, stormwater manager for the town of Wrightsville Beach, said that although clean water improvements began with a Phase I protocol for point source pollutants under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), the stormwater program for the town of Wrightsville Beach was initiated under the federally mandated Phase II part of the program.

“I think it was around 1990, the environmental protection agency wanted to do more for clean water and there was a clean water act that came out in the early ’70s,” Dellies said. “Well, they finally came up with a plan to do that, and that was going to be the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System. Phase I was point sources, so factories that had pipes or anything that discharged directly from a pipe were covered under the first phase of this program.”

Dellies said that once the agency realized that a variety of pollutants did not come from a specific point source, they moved to a Phase II standard.

“Well, then they realized, even though that had an affect (Phase I), there was still a lot of other pollution that wasn’t coming from a point source — a non-point source pollution,” Dellies said. “This was stormwater runoff, dog waste, fertilizers — and it really hit home, I guess, when we had those hurricanes in the late ’90s where it just flooded the entire Pamlico area. So they came out with this idea of having a permit to discharge under the Phase II.”

It was then that the Wrightsville Beach Stormwater Task Force, comprised of town employees, area developers and UNCW graduate students, developed the initial permit application to discharge under the NPDES Phase II.

The town of Wrightsville Beach falls under the Phase II designation because it operates a municipal separate stormwater system called an MS4, and the permit, which was received in 2007, allows for the management and operation of the storm drains here at the beach.

Dellies said that he hopes to partner with UNCW sometime in July and hold meetings to start educating the public on stormwater and water quality in the area.

Although the meetings will not be modeled exactly after the neighborhood creek meetings that New Hanover County is currently offering area residents, Dellies said that beach residents should be informed about where their stormwater money is going and the challenges the area faces in terms of water quality management.

“We’ve been doing that water quality study out here in Banks Channel, and you know people are curious,” Dellies said. “Obviously, they pay the stormwater fee and would like to know where their money is going toward, but also, they use it. You know, they swim out there, and they like to boat, and they would like to know. I don’t think we’ll have any definitive answers by then, but I can at least tell them what kind of progress we have made.”

The current average monthly stormwater fee at Wrightsville Beach is $10.25 per month, with the lowest fee being $5 per month and the highest being $20 per month. The fee for each parcel is based on the square footage and the number of units on the parcel.

The fee schedule was formally adopted by the board of aldermen in June of 2006.