An Old Fight On Mercer Island Goes Down Drain -- Storm-Water Utility Wins Easy Approval

MERCER ISLAND - With nary a peep, residents recently accepted a measure they had fought over for decades: an all-island storm-drainage utility.

Officials say the utility, killed after a public uproar in 1975, won easy approval this time from the Mercer Island City Council for three reasons, including state clean-water regulations that now compel the city to minimize the silt and chemicals it pours into Lake Washington.

This time it was a bottoms-up operation, with owners of properties affected by downstream runoff forming neighborhood committees and pleading with the city for action.

And the costs will come in small bites. Construction of the drainage system will proceed basin by basin, funded by incremental increases in residents' utility bills.

Last year's storm-water-facility maintenance charge was $5.48 per residence per month; this year's will be $6.33. Assistant City Manager Rich Conrad says the rates "will ramp up over time, reflecting a buildup of capital-reserve dollars needed to fix each (drainage) basin."

The first basin targeted for improvements is No. 32, running roughly from QFC Village westward down Southeast 72nd Street to the lake. Residents there rejected a local improvement district in 1975, setting off the earlier attempt at an all-island utility.

In 1975, consultants surveyed the island's 54 drainage basins and drafted a comprehensive plan to store excessive storm water and release it slowly, through natural streambeds wherever possible.

The plan was attacked as "grandiose," too expensive and unnecessary. Property owners said they would handle their own drainage.

Many residents found storm-water control a difficult concept because while rain falls on everyone's property, the runoff that can cause mudslides, hillside erosion, soggy lawns or flooded basements affects mainly those on lower-lying properties.

Times have changed. Most people now understand that homes, parking lots, streets and other impervious surfaces accelerate runoff problems, sending fast-moving rainwater downstream. Indeed, Mercer Island High School students now study the island's watercourses as part of the curriculum.

But before 1975, the city of Mercer Island was able to install storm-water pipes in just two drainage basins, the Groveland Park area and through Tarywood, and only because a predominance of public property made it feasible to form local-improvement districts.

Resistance to a coordinated drainage system made a hero of Jim Horn, an "upstream" resident who went on to defeat a pro-utility incumbent for City Council, become mayor and then 41st Legislative District state representative to the House, where he now is assistant majority leader.

But after two more decades of upstream development that accelerated erosion of lakeside properties, says city engineer Joe Willis, "the people came to us." Waterfront owners complained, he says, that `we're getting everyone's water.'

"We encouraged neighborhood meetings, so the folks upstream could be told by their downstream neighbors, `This is what you've been causing.'

"Committees came to our utility board with recommendations that we solve problems on a basin-by-basin basis, with everybody paying for it because the problem is islandwide."

Recently, the city agreed to help control private drainage systems.

"We really don't want people crawling into pipes," Willis said. "We're better equipped to do that.

"We're telling those with private drainage systems: `Wherever there's a public benefit, the city should be doing the maintenance. Call us, and we'll come out, inspect and advise.' "