City Council approves first stormwater ordinance

In what city officials say will be the first of many stormwater ordinances, the Beatrice City Council Monday night approved an ordinance prohibiting illicit discharges into the stormwater system, which carries a $500 fine for anyone found in violation.

The Beatrice City Council approved 6-0, with Councilmen Rich Kerr and Ted Fairbanks absent, to enact the ordinance defining and prohibiting illicit discharges to reduce the number of pollutants into the stormwater system.

This first ordinance defines what an illicit discharge is and that it is now a violation of city ordinance to allow illicit discharges into the stormwater system.

An illicit discharge, or pollutant, is defined as anything that causes or contributes to pollution.

This may include items ranging from paints and varnishes to automotive fluids to garbage and litter to pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers to animal and human wastes.

“It simplifies the language of what an illicit discharge is,” Gary Willard, Beatrice stormwater coordinator, said. “In other words, things that belong in the sanitary sewer belong in the sanitary sewer and not in the storm sewer.”

This ordinance is a requirement of the city’s obligation to enact a stormwater management plan as part of the Clean Water Act of 1972, Willard said.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has mandated cities of 10,000 population or more establish a stormwater management plan and ordinances to reduce the number of pollutants in water sources such as lakes, rivers and ponds.

Beatrice is currently in its third year of a five-year EPA permit. At the end of the permit all minimum requirements from the federal and state government must be met.

Under this new ordinance, it is a violation for anyone in the city of Beatrice to discharge illicit materials into the storm water system, Willard said. Anyone found in violation of the ordinance could face up to a $500 fine.

In the next few weeks and months, Willard said the city will expect more stormwater ordinances and stormwater education programs to reach out to the public.

All of these program and ordinance are a requirement of the EPA and the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality.

“EPA and the state are very serious at what is being discharged into the rivers via the storm system,” City Administrator Jim Bauer said.