Will Marion Get Fined for Violating Runoff Rules?

The Marion City Council tabled a resolution to establish a storm drain utility fee at Thursday night's city council meeting.

That’s in addition to nearly two years of delays on the project, according to Marion City Council member Craig Adamson.

The reasoning behind the delay represents an attempt by the council to better educate residents and business owners about the fee, however some city council members and Marion City Administrator Lon Luckhahn, said the move puts them in danger of being audited and fined by the Department of Natural Resources.

"We can’t in good conscious advise that that is the right decision to make," said Pluckhahn.

The fee is to fund a federal rule intended to clean up the water supply by lessening runoff of chemicals and substances from commercial and residential properties.

Since the federal mandate does not come with federal funding, the council has decided to charge a progressive fee that places higher fees on non-residential properties that contribute more to runoff. Residential properties would pay a flat rate that amounts to $4.80 per month. Marion City Engineer said the highest fee paid would likely be the which would pay up to $20,000 per year.

The money would go towards sewer improvements and a full time employee to run the program. This is so the city would be better in compliance with the new regulation and would not be fined by the DNR.

The trouble is, according to City Engineer Dan Whitlow, is that there is no strict deadline to adhere to runoff standards. That means the DNR can audit Marion at any time. With the way things are now, Whitlow is afraid Marion would fail the audit and be subjected to a fee in the tens of thousands.

"They don’t make small fines," he said.

In fact, Iowa City was audited last year. Whitlow said they barely scraped by, and that was with two full time city staff members devoted to the program instead of Marion’s one employee who works on the program part time.

Adamson voted against tabling the resolution for an additional three months for these very reasons, but he said he is not opposed to the idea of getting more community input.

City Council member Paul Draper encouraged the wating period. He said he does not believe that Marion will face an audit in the meantime. He said he wanted to be careful, as he had received a lot of complaints about the project.

"With the number of calls I am getting, it appears that there is a lot of dissatisfaction (with the fee)," he said.