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2023/04/03 - Mayor's Column: Stormwater Maintenance

“AN OPEN DOOR TO O’FALLON”
A WEEKLY NOTE FROM MAYOR HERB ROACH
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Last week, our Public Works Committee looked at the city’s policies and procedures for addressing stormwater drainage in O’Fallon. Stormwater is an issue that cities, large and small across the country, must deal with.  For many years, stormwater was never a significant thing on the minds of cities or developers. But as time went on, there was a realization that you couldn’t just let water run anywhere and not have any control or retention of stormwater runoff.

There are number of things that go into a Stormwater Management Program, including a communities priorities and regulations set by State and Federal Agencies. For example, on February 15th of this year. the IEPA conducted a standard site inspection in O’Fallon. This is a regular occurrence.

Following the inspection, the IEPA provided a summary to the City of O’Fallon. In that summary, it stated that the activities, policies, and procedures by the City of O’Fallon that occurred during the inspection period demonstrated that O’Fallon is being very proactive in its stormwater program and that progress continues to be made and achievements realized in meeting the six minimum control measures specified in the permit.

Here in O’Fallon, the City has recognized the need to address stormwater problems that have existed for over 50 years, but to do so in an orderly & financially sound manner.  One of the first items was to recognize the significant areas of concern and the next was to establish a set of criteria to help prioritize what projects need to be addressed first. Here are the priorities that the city has established, ranked in order of priority:

  1. Locations where structures are flooding.
  2. Locations where roads flood to the point that they are impassable.
  3. Replacement of existing publicly owned storm sewer infrastructure that is failing.
  4. Erosion that is threatening city owned property, structures, or infrastructure.
  5. Erosion that is threatening privately owned property.

If you also look at the resources that are being put toward storm water, you will see a sharp increase in recent history and going forward:

  • From 2013 through 2017, the city spent $4,101,000 on storm water projects.
  • From 2018 through 2022, the city spent $6,676,000 on storm water projects.
  • Over the next 5 years, there are stormwater projects planned that will cost over $10.5 million.

I hope that this will give you a little idea of what the city has and will be doing on stormwater management under our current programs and policies.

As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open.