What is a stormwater utility?
Just as residents and businesses currently pay a fee for the amount of water they use, and the amount of wastewater they discharge (sanitary sewer bill), property owners in Greenville are being charged a user fee based on the amount of contribution they make to stormwater runoff. That funding will be used for the maintenance, repair and upgrade of Greenville’s stormwater system, and for complying with the EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency’s) NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) Phase II permit requirements which are part of the 1976 Clean Water Act.

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1. What is impervious area?
2. How did you measure the impervious area for my property?
3. What can I do to measure the impervious area myself?
4. I am not satisfied with the impervious area measurement for my property. What can I do?
5. What is a stormwater utility?
6. Why does the City of Greenville need a stormwater utility?
7. Why does the City need more money to fix the stormwater system?
8. Isn’t flooding in Greenville just a problem in certain areas of the City?
9. Will I get a separate bill for stormwater?
10. Will tax-exempt, non-profit organizations like schools, churches and hospitals be charged for stormwater?
11. Why can’t we just use existing sewer money to cover stormwater costs?
12. How much will it cost?
13. I live in an apartment. Will I have to pay?
14. How much will business property owners pay? How will their rate be determined?
15. Why is the amount of hard surface area used to calculate the rates?
16. Is there anything that non-residential property owners can do to reduce their bill?
17. When will I know how much my bill will be?
18. What if I don’t agree with the City’s calculation of the amount of hard surface area I have on my property?
19. When will rates go up?
20. Isn’t this just another tax?
21. I don’t remember voting on this tax. How can the city do this without a vote?
22. How can we be sure that the money raised will be used for stormwater improvements and not diverted to other projects by the city?
23. Won’t this utility create a whole new government bureaucracy?
24. How much money does the city expect the stormwater utility to collect?
25. How will the money collected for the stormwater utility be used?
26. How soon can we expect to see results like reduced flooding?
27. What issues will be addressed first when the stormwater utility is implemented?
28. How does stormwater affect the environment?
29. How will the new utility help the environment?
30. What happens if the City fails to meet the new requirements and regulations of the EPA?