Which Watershed? Washougal wants public’s input before starting stormwater plan

Washougal officials are asking local residents to help them decide which Washougal watershed -- either Gibbons Creek or the Washougal River -- city leaders should select for an upcoming stormwater management plan. The Washington State Department of Ecology has asked more than 80 cities and counties in western Washington, including Washougal, to identify steps to reduce the harmful effects of stormwater runoff in watersheds. Washougal's two main watersheds -- the Washougal River and Gibbons Creek -- both recently earned "good health" ratings from the Clark County Public Works Department's latest stream health report, which assesses the water quality, biological health and stream flow of local waterways to identify pollutants, allocate resources for watershed improvements and measure the effectiveness of actions. But city leaders note that, as Washougal has grown in population -- and replaced its forests and prairies with urban and suburban buildings and infrastructure -- the population of salmon and steelhead trout have declined over the past few decades in Gibbons Creek and the Washougal River. Historically, forests and wetlands soaked up rain where it fell. But as more and more people moved to Washougal, lands were cleared and wetlands were filled. Now, rainwater sweeps chemicals and particles from vehicle tires, roofs, lawns, and outdoor storage areas into nearby streams, creating runoff that could potentially harm fish populations. "Stormwater is definitely gaining importance," said Sean Mulderig, the city of Washougal's stormwater program coordinator. "I mean, not that it wasn't important before, but in the eyes of the public, I definitely think that it's becoming a lot more apparent that stormwater is really important. Around the world, a lot of wildlife habitat is becoming impacted with climate change and degrading factors, like mixing with different types of land uses and human interaction. We can't wait around any longer to resolve or help some of these concerns, especially in regards to water quality and stormwater." Stormwater is water that originates from precipitation, including heavy rain and meltwater from hail and snow. It can turn into urban runoff, a type of surface runoff created by urbanization and a major source of urban flooding and water pollution in urban communities worldwide. "Stormwater runoff is water that comes from rain, and along that process of it hitting the ground and moving to a waterway -- a river, stream, lake, any kind of water body -- it picks up certain pollutants," Mulderig said. "And a lot of time we just classify that as stormwater runoff, but it's really a combination of water and anything that water carries with it, and that may be sediment that goes with that stormwater, or oils and grease found from car leaks or tire material. It's really anything that rainwater can pick up on its way to a water body. "Naturally, the more that we disturb natural lands and build them out with impervious surfaces and pollution-generating land uses, our waterways are definitely affected by stormwater from urban areas," he said. "Temperatures increased, water quality decreased. Hydrology -- the way that the water flows through the system -- is also changed. You have a lot higher peak flows from rain events because you don't have water that's soaking into the ground as much as it was before." Mulderig said the city could have a stormwater management plan in place by March 2023, and begin to take action in September or October 2023, once city leaders decide which watershed to focus their attention on. "Right now, we are in the prioritization phase to select which watershed we will be focusing on, and we're going to narrow that down even further to a catchment level -- a smaller watershed, in layman terms," Mulderig said. "We're going to assess community feedback, what kind of collaboration is going on in a particular area, and other stormwater management influences. Then we're going to get boots on the ground and assess what kind of feasibility for what our opportunity areas are for installing structural or nonstructural stormwater management actions." Mulderig said the stormwater plan's findings in this SMAP are going to be "crucial for the city to develop a stormwater comprehensive plan and prioritize potential capital improvement projects or programs that will end up helping improve and restore water quality and habitat." "We're going to be tackling our utility fee rate analysis soon, as well," Mulderig added. "This plan will also help us determine what our future needs are ... and potential projects down the road." Regardless of which watershed city leaders pick, the city's stormwater management plan will likely produce "a lot of different solutions or stormwater management actions, ranging from anything structural to non-structural," Mulderig said. "That could include increased inspection frequency in a particular area, because maybe there's a history of stormwater facilities that get out of compliance. Or maybe there's a large chunk of a catchment that does not have any flow control or treatment, so a stormwater retrofit is an ideal fix for that particular location. Or maybe it's something along the lines of increased maintenance in a certain area." Residents who wish to weigh in on whether Washougal officials should select Gibbons Creek or the Washougal River for its new stormwater management plan should provide feedback online at arcg.is/XP59X0 by July 12. Washougal Council to vote on stormwater permit on July 11 The stormwater management plan is not the only stormwater-related issue city of Washougal officials are dealing with right now. Several Washougal City Council members have recently expressed concerns about a proposed ordinance change that will force the city to inspect local businesses for stormwater pollution. The city has a Western Washington Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permit, which allows it to discharge stormwater from its storm-sewer system into state waterways. Currently, 83 cities and five counties in western Washington must comply with the permit, which has specific requirements and deadlines for implementation of programs to minimize the discharge of pollution from municipal stormwater systems into streams, lakes, rivers and wetlands to protect their beneficial uses and other environmental resources. The permit's most recent update, issued in 2019, calls for cities to develop regulations and an inspection program for existing businesses and institutions to ensure they are preventing rainwater from coming into contact with potentially harmful pollutants. "These are new requirements," Trista Kobluskie, senior stormwater planner for Otak, a Portland-based urban design, architecture, planning and engineering firm, told city leaders during a workshop on June 27. "They are fairly similar to some requirements that are already in your permit and that you're already meeting, so the gap is relatively small and a little step up from where you're at right now. The main difference is that what we had before was relatively reactive and this is more proactive and results in an inspection program." The change "may impact" some existing businesses in Washougal, according to Kobluskie. "Once you adopt these regulations, the permit requires that you develop an inspection program that will proactively go out and ensure that businesses, institutions and industries within the city limits are applying source-control (best management practices) if they are storing chemicals or have stockpiles on their site," she said. "This will result in inspections. That's one reason we needed to ensure there's enforcement language and authority to inspect. You do already have it, but this makes sure it applies on the proactive side. Businesses may be required to do things that they're not currently doing as a result of this program. The first step is for the city to develop a list of sites that could potentially contaminate the storm-sewer system because they are storing chemicals or stockpiles on site, prioritize among those that may be most likely or more at risk of discharging these contaminates to your storm-sewer system, then inspect them." The Department of Ecology is requiring cities to adopt the code changes by Aug. 1, and begin inspections in January 2023. Kobluskie added that the city has known about the permit "for several years." "It just seems like a very short time to comply," Washougal Mayor Rochelle Ramos said during the Council's June 27 workshop. "We have a month to give businesses notice. It seems like that's not fair if we've known for years now." The "phasing in" of the inspection program "does seem a little abrupt," Trevor Evers, the city's director of public works, said. Councilwoman Molly Coston and Julie Russell also expressed concern about the cost of the program. "It's an unfunded mandate from the Department of Ecology that we have to come up with the money to fund this," Russell said. "If we don't have the money, what do we do? There's not a resolution for that." Evers said that the inspection program "is definitely going to pose some challenges," particularly for Mulderig. "With just one (stormwater) program coordinator citywide, it's going to be rather challenging to do inspections beyond what he's doing right now," he said. Port of Camas-Washougal Commissioner Larry Keister agreed with Evers. "The fact that you're going to have to do inspections of all of those businesses in the (Port's) industrial park is huge," Keister told city leaders. "That's going to be labor-intensive. With a lot of those businesses, you're going to have to make appointments to go in." The council will vote on the proposed ordinance change during their next meeting on Monday, July 11.

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