Stormwater Utility Surveys:

Ten reports of surveys related to stormwater utilities were reviewed for this bibliography.  The reports were found to have several common elements.  The components of each survey are displayed in Table 1 so that the reader can quickly determine the contents of each and easily locate information about a specific topic. 

General Questions

The survey reports usually begin with general questions concerning the location of the utility, the size of the community served by the utility, and the number of accounts held by the utility. 

Utility Organization

Next, the reports present information about the organization of the utility, what local government branch the utility is organized under, the responsibilities of the utility, and why the utility was formed. 

Billing Information

The mechanics of the billing system are usually presented in questions about the base for the user charges, the type of billing system used, the frequency of billing cycles, the average monthly charge for a single family residence, and the available methods of enforcing payment.

Utility Budget

  Finally, most of the reports present data concerning the budget of the utility, the total revenue gained from user charges, the percentage of the utility’s budget that is covered by user fees, and the costs involved in forming the utility. 

Surveys:

Apogee Research.  (1992).  (See Stormwater Utility Manuals Section)

Black and Veatch.  (1992).  Stormwater Utility Survey.  Kansas City, Missouri: Author.

Black and Veatch’s Management Services Division conducted this survey of fifty-four stormwater utilities to provide information about the organization and finance of existing utilities to other stormwater management agencies.  This survey includes most of the common survey elements (see chart) and contains additional questions concerning operation and management expenses, the financing of capital improvements, types of user classifications, and exemptions used by the utilities.  Black and Veatch also identified the most common concerns of the utility administrators surveyed so that utility planners can try to eliminate them early in the utility creation process.  This survey was summarized by Robert S. Benson in Water Management in the 90’s:  A Time for Innovation, the proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers Water Resources Planning and Management Division 20^th Anniversary Conference held in Seattle, Washington from May 1-5, 1993.

Black and Veatch.  (1996). Stormwater Utility Survey.  Kansas City, Missouri: Author.

This survey presents information about 97 utilities throughout the United States.  The survey results include updates to the questions asked in the 1992 survey and additional information concerning rate increases, customer databases, costs for stormwater originating outside the utility service area, credits and incentives, and the utilities’ accounting systems.  This survey can be used with the 1992 survey to examine changes stormwater utility programs over a four-year period for those utilities that responded to both surveys.

Florida Association of Stormwater Utilities.  (1995).  Stormwater Utilities Survey.  Tallahassee, Florida: Author.

The Florida Association of Stormwater Utilities conducted this survey of forty-two stormwater utilities located in the state of Florida.  The survey is intended to provide information concerning the organization, rate structure, billing practices, revenue, expenses, and operation of existing utilities to other utilities and government officials considering the formation of a new utility.  This survey includes most of the common survey elements and offers more detailed information about the utilities’ budgets by breaking down utility expenses into seven categories.  This survey also provides more detailed rate information including credits, exemptions, and the sources of information that were used to create the billing database.  The Florida Association of Stormwater Utilities conducts a survey of Florida utilities every two years.  The surveys can be obtained by contacting FASU at http://www.fasu.org. 

Florida Atlantic University/ Florida International University Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems.  (1991).  A Survey of Florida Stormwater Utilities.  Fort Lauderdale, Florida: Author.

This survey reports data from twenty-one stormwater utilities in the state of Florida.  The survey was done for the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation to provide fiscal and administrative information about Florida’s existing utilities.  The report also makes recommendations to communities interested in creating utilities based on the survey responses and an analysis of the survey data. The report discusses the legal authority for utility creation that exists in Florida and reports basic information about each of the twenty-one utilities in the first two chapters.   In Chapter Three, the authors provide an analysis of the survey data using Pearson’s r coefficient to examine relationships between different utility characteristics.  Finally, the survey gives the reader an overview of existing regional management plans and recommendations concerning the establishment of a stormwater utility.  This survey is unique because it provides information on the land uses in each utility service area and provides data concerning the correlation factors between certain utility characteristics. 

Greely and Hansen.  (1993). Study Memorandum No. 1:  Survey of Existing Stormwater Utilities. Camp Springs, Maryland: Author.

This survey was prepared for the City of Richmond, Virginia by Greely and Hansen to provide the city administration with information concerning the development, organization, and operation of several successful utilities.  The survey questionnaire was completed by thirteen utilities.  The report provides very detailed information on all of the common survey components.  It also provides additional information on funding mechanisms for capital improvements, interim rate structures, public education programs, the types of properties that were included in the customer base, and common problems associated with the creation and management of a stormwater utility. 

Lindsey, G.  (1988). A Survey of Stormwater Utilities.  Baltimore, Maryland:  Stormwater Management Administration, Maryland Department of the Environment. (4,052 KB)

The Stormwater Management Administration of the Maryland Department of the Environment surveyed stormwater utilities in the United States to research the stormwater utility concept as a possible funding mechanism for local governments in the state that were having trouble meeting water quality goals.  This survey covers the elements common to most stormwater utility surveys and contains additional information about land uses in each utility area, exemptions and credits, public education programs, and the allocation of maintenance responsibilities.  The survey also breaks each utility’s operating expenses down into seven different types of expenses to give readers an idea of which expenses generally require a large portion of the budget.

Lindsey, G.  (1990).  Update to a Survey of Stormwater Utilities.  Organizing a Self-Sustaining Utility for Stormwater Services. Alexandria, Virginia: Water Pollution Control Federation. WPCF Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., October 7-11, 1990.  (4,052 KB)

This is an update to Lindsey’s 1988 survey that was presented at the Water Pollution Control Federation’s Technical Practice Committee workshop in 1990.  This survey contains updates on the charges to single family homes, total utility revenues, the percentage of each utility’s revenue that is generated by user charges, and the number of accounts served by each utility.  This update shows how utilities have kept up with operation costs and how user charges have changed during the two year period between the two surveys.

Raftelis Environmental Consulting Group.  (1998).  Water and Wastewater Rate Survey.  Charlotte, North Carolina: Author. (4,669 KB)

This survey covers water, wastewater, and stormwater data for 156 programs in the United States.  Since it is not a stormwater utility specific survey, many of the programs included are not stormwater utilities.  The survey contains valuable information on thirty-three stormwater programs that would be helpful to planners including average monthly user fees, billing frequency, billing methods, the basis for user charges, and annual revenues.

Ungan, N.  (1997).  A Survey of Stormwater Utilities. Environmental Planning Quarterly  14 (1),  5-7.

Ungan provides a survey of several previous surveys of stormwater utilities and briefly summarizes the findings of Lindsey (1988 and 1990), the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation (1991), the Florida Association of Stormwater Utilities (1995), and Raftelis (1996).  Ungan also conducted her own survey in order to investigate the extent to which utilities and cities rely on user fees and the socioeconomic characteristics of the areas that have established stormwater utilities.  This survey includes most of the common questions (see Table 1).  It also supplies additional information on the types of property that are charged by the utility, whether or not the community has a master plan, the education level and median household income of the population served by the utility, the overall net debt per capita, and the property tax revenue per capita of the community in which the utility is located in.

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