Introduction:

Stormwater utilities have become one of the most popular options for funding stormwater programs during the past thirty years.  Hundreds of articles, presentations, books, how-to manuals, and surveys have been published about them.  Thousands of communities have researched the utility concept in order to provide a stable, dedicated funding source for the stormwater management programs that are vital to their efforts to minimize flood damage, maintain stormwater systems, and improve surface water quality.  Renewed focus on total maximum daily loads, reducing nonpoint source pollution, and EPA's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater permitting requirements have put additional pressure on local governments to increase funding for stormwater management programs.  

Most local governments have historically been unable to allocate enough money from the general fund to provide adequate stormwater management services.  Consequently, they are turning to dedicated funding sources like stormwater utilities in hopes that their stormwater programs can become self-sufficient.  The purpose of this bibliography is to collect into one place all currently available literature on stormwater utilities and other potential funding sources.  Community stormwater managers and planners can use this bibliography as a reference or research tool by proceeding through the bibliography as their projects develop, utilizing the general resources first and then referring to the other resources as they become relevant.  This bibliography is separated into nine sections: 

• stormwater and urban runoff manuals
• government finance manuals
• general articles about stormwater utilities
• surveys of stormwater utilities
• stormwater utility manuals
• other topics concerning stormwater utilities
• impact fees
• permit and inspection fees
• case studies.

Each of the sections provide references that serve a different purpose.  

Stormwater and urban runoff manuals are usually technical manuals about the setup, operation, and maintenance of stormwater management systems that only contain brief discussions of stormwater financing methods.  Government finance manuals usually review several different options that communities can use to finance capital projects without any discussion of stormwater management specifically. 

The section with general stormwater utility articles contains papers and presentations that provide the reader with an overview of the stormwater utility concept.  The stormwater utility surveys provide raw data and statistical information concerning existing utilities around the country while the stormwater utility manuals guide the reader through a series of suggested steps toward the establishment of a utility.  The components of the stormwater utility surveys and manuals are summarized in two tables within the body of the bibliography in order to provide users with an overview of each reference. 

References in the “other topics” category discuss sub-topics of the utility creation process, such as how to structure the billing system or determine the base unit charge in detail.  Materials in the impact fees section discuss the types of impact fees that can be used to fund stormwater programs, the legal issues surrounding impact fees, and how to determine the appropriate impact fee amount. Permit and inspection fees papers discuss how to assess each type of fee, how much to charge, and what types of fees are the most common. Finally, the case studies discuss the specifics of individual communities’ stormwater management programs.  

The nine different reference sections will allow readers to quickly and easily find the type of materials that they need and eliminate those resources that do not relate to the topic that they are researching.  Some of the references fit more than one of the nine categories, so they have been placed in the most appropriate category and referenced so that they can be found easily in all of the relevant categories.