Jeremy Cox

jcox6@dmg.gannett.com

Salisbury joined Berlin as the only places on the Lower Shore to create stormwater utilities.

The fee is intended to pay for drainage fixes and reducing stormwater-related pollution.

Critics say it's unclear how much larger property owners will be charged, hurting business.

Salisbury property owners are set to pay a new fee next year that city officials hope will relieve flooding and prune back pollution spilling into waterways that flow into the Chesapeake Bay.

The City Council unanimously approved a stormwater utility, a dedicated funding source for millions of dollars in upgrades to the aging — and, in many ways, failing — citywide drainage system.

The measure survived a last-minute attack from the Salisbury Area Chamber of Commerce. Ernie Colburn, the group's CEO, called on the council Saturday to table the utility until more detailed cost estimates could be provided.

He also argued that the city should wait to see what would happen once Larry Hogan takes the governor's office since the incoming Republican has vowed to trim a host of Gov. Martin O'Malley-era taxes.

Council President Jake Day called the political concerns moot because the state isn't mandating that the city do anything. It wasn't among the 10 jurisdictions required under a 2012 law to enact stormwater fees as part of the Chesapeake's cleanup.

"That has nothing to do with us or the infrastructure that's been in the ground for 105 years … that we've failed to take care of," said Day, throwing up his hands and shaking his head.

All four present council members voted in favor of the utility. Councilman Jack Heath was absent.

The vote stood as nothing less than a watershed moment in the city's environmental history, one supporter remarked.

"This is really an initiative that is coming from the community, and it's allowing the community to control its own destiny when it comes to stormwater and controlling polluted runoff," said Erik Fisher, a Maryland land planner with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

The utility was first proposed in Salisbury in 2009 by an environmental task force created by then-Mayor Barrie Parsons Tilghman. But the idea remained largely behind the scenes until a May 2013 report by the University of Maryland's Environmental Finance Center identified $25 million in potential stormwater upgrades in the city.

It recommended charging homeowners $40 a year under a utility.

The version passed by the council on Monday doesn't specify an exact dollar amount. That is set to come back in a separate ordinance, likely in spring 2015.

But several council members said the fee would be $20 annually. The scaled-down cost is possible, in part, because the city doesn't plan to hire more staff to run the utility, Public Works Director Michael Moulds said.

Said Day: "There may be a call to step it up in the future, but I think we all agree starting with a very modest fee is the best approach."

The money will be used to fix decades-old pipes and modernize ditches and ponds, among other things. It also will seed a grant program for private property owners to improve their drainage, and it can be used to help attract more money from the state for fixes, officials say.

The measure also includes a credit system for nonresidential property owners with more-advanced storm systems. Their fees are to be calculated based on how much impervious surface they have.

A Salisbury University study on the amount of impervious area in the city is about 95 percent complete, Moulds said.

Salisbury isn't the first to create a stormwater utility on the Eastern Shore, Day noted. It follows Berlin, Centerville and Oxford, he said.

Tim Spies, historically the council's most conservative member, called his vote for the new fee, set to take effect on July 1, 2015, a "resounding yes."

"This isn't a water tax," he said. "This is about what's washed into our waterways and into our drinking water. This is an economic imperative for us."

jcox6@dmg.gannett.com

410-845-4630

On Twitter @Jeremy_Cox