SEQUIM — A draft proposed plan to address water runoff met with disapproval from two City Council members.
“I was really disappointed in the whole plan,” Councilman Ted Miller said during a council meeting Monday.
“There is no attempt for balance. There is no attempt to provide any kind of fiscal trade-off analysis, which is absolutely critical.”
The draft storm- and surface water master plan outlines three tiers of possible work ranging from $702,000 to $3.24 million.
Councilman Erik Erichsen said he “didn’t see anything in this plan that would convince me that we have a need for all of these things.”
Their comments came after a presentation of the plan — the first ever considered by the city — that was prepared by Herrera Environmental Consultants Inc., a Seattle-based consultant group.
It can be read online at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-WaterPlan.
Public comment can be made at open houses Wednesdays and Thursdays or by contacting Ann Soule, project manager, at 360-582-2436 or asoule@sequimwa.gov.
The draft plan is intended to prepare the city for long-term management of stormwater to avoid flooding and water quality problems as the population grows, city staff said.
Dungeness Bay
It outlines ways in which stormwater could be trapped and reused during dry spells before spilling out into Dungeness Bay.
City staff said that currently, the city lacks a stormwater inspection program for private facilities; a long-term stormwater plan for growth, changes in weather patterns or capital improvements; knowledge of water quality and habitat; pollution prevention outreach; and funding for stormwater work.
The master plan aims to change that, but at a cost.
The draft breaks the plan into three tiers, separating short- and long-term goals:
■ Tier A — Estimated to cost $702,000, this would achieve the minimum standards proposed in the plan: an inspection program, water quality compliance enforcement and capital improvement projects slated for 2016 and 2017.
■ Tier B — This plan would cost an estimated $1.12 million. It would prepare the stormwater program for future requirements.
Goals would include pollution source detection and elimination, water asset management, public education and outreach, and capital improvement programs slated for 2018 and 2019.
■ Tier C — At an estimated cost of $3.24 million, this plan would prepare the stormwater program for future requirements and anticipate risk.
Goals would include species and habitat protection, stormwater design and plan review, and capital improvement projects slated for 2020 and 2021.
Tier C previously had included a $46 million capital improvement project aimed at securing a water reservoir site off River Road, but that has since been dropped from the master plan because of its exorbitant cost.
“The reservoir project was just pulled off of the funding side because it is a $46 million project to become both an irrigation storage and a stormwater storage project,” Soule said.
“There is just no way to see how much the city’s obligation is going to end up being.”
No number yet
And while the reservoir remains a high priority, “we just can’t put a number on it yet, and it is not fair to guess because it throws our entire outlook off . . . because it is so out of scale to everything else we need to do,” she added.
Miller believes the remaining projects are too costly as well.
“It doesn’t matter how nice it would be to have this. If it is going to cost a lot of money and we can’t afford it, we don’t want to do it,” he said.
“Why waste the time studying it if we can’t afford it?”
“It just seems to me, and I haven’t changed my mind after reading the plan, we have a solution looking for a problem.”
Referencing the current drought, Miller said the city should be concentrating on other projects to ensure enough water remains available for use.
“I think [getting] more water from the river is going to be more critical than how we process stormwater. I think we are heading down the wrong path,” he said.
The snowpack in the Olympic Mountains is at zero, the lowest it has been since 2005, when it was a little less than 50 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The Dungeness River, which relies on snowpack through the summer and early autumn and provides water for the city, is expected to dwindle dramatically.
August-October driest
The driest time is expected to be from August through October.
Soule said the plan does address ways to conserve water during droughts.
“This is not just a stormwater-focused plan,” she said.
“It is a water resource management plan. It really is a holistic plan for water.”
“This will likely be a several-month process of council review [and] community review,” City Manager Steve Burkett told the council during the meeting.
“At the next meeting July 13, staff will bring to you a proposed schedule for that review.”
There will also be opportunities for the public to voice their concerns directly to council members, he noted.
“I suspect that the end of this year, beginning next year, is when the council would be having discussions and having plans with the citizens.”
Open houses
The city hosts open houses allowing public comment on the draft plan every Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and every Thursday from noon to 2 p.m. at the city’s interpretive center at the Water Reuse Demonstration Park, 500 N. Blake Ave.
The open houses will be held through the time the plan is out for public comment, Soule said.
The City Council will determine the length of the public comment period.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
