SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – San Diego County experienced heavy rainfall on Monday.
"There's kind of two lessons from the heavy rainfalls,” Pat Abbott, a geologist, said.
Abbott is a geologist from San Diego State. ABC 10News spoke with him about what multiple inches of rain in one week can mean for our region.
"Now we're adding more water into the ground. The more water that's saturated below the ground, the more it weighs, the stronger the pull of gravity is, and landslides and cliff failures tend to be more frequent during times of heavy rain and water saturation like we're in now,” Abbott said.
While the skies have cleared for now, Monday's flooding reminds us of the infrastructure needs in San Diego and the need to fund the fixes.
"That's the multi-billion-dollar question,” Councilmember Joe La Cava of District 1 said. "We've had some good success with getting federal grants, to take care of some of our bigger stormwater funding, we got one that was on the order of about $700 million."
LaCava told ABC 10News that the funds they have go only so far, given the projected deficit.
After the devastating January 2024 floods, ABC 10News reported on the city's five-year infrastructure planning outlook.
It showed the city needed more than $2 billion for stormwater infrastructure.
The latest edition of that same report, released this month, shows that funding needs have more than doubled to more than $5 billion.
The report projects the city will only have about $400 million in funding to cover that.
"On top of that, not only is the deficit the problem, we're not able to keep up with the routine replacement as some of these storm drainpipes were out as they're predicted to do,” LaCava said.
LaCava told ABC 10News there is a stormwater fee in the City, 95 cents a month for a single-family home, and if they increased that, it could help.
"If we just wanted to round that up to $1 a month for a single-family home, we would actually have to go to the ballot,” LaCava said.
The councilmember said there was a previous attempt to raise the stormwater rate, but it failed after voters didn’t show interest in that effort.
In the meantime, LaCava said the City will have to continue seeking additional grants to secure funding.
"I think it will take some time before the voters are really have an appetite for either a dedicated stormwater fee,” LaCava said. “As opposed to, say, a broader sales tax, which may or may not be allocated to stormwater."
LaCava said there will be a special budget session with the City Council on Monday, February 23rd at 6 p.m.
The City of San Diego sent ABC 10News the following statement when asked about the stormwater infrastructure funding and what can be done to improve it.
"San Diego is facing a $3.7 billion funding shortfall over the next five years to upgrade and modernize its stormwater infrastructure. Stormwater infrastructure is critical to providing flood control and improved water quality at local beaches, creeks, and bays. But many San Diegans are unaware of the severity of the problem because stormwater infrastructure tends to exist below ground and out of public view.
The funding challenge is due to a variety of factors, including the lack of a major revenue source to maintain and upgrade pipes, channels, and pump stations, many of which are more than 50 years old and past their useful life.
The City’s stormwater fee hasn’t been increased since 1990, and the average household pays about $12 annually – one of the lowest fees in the country and four times below the national average of $48.
The Stormwater Department largely relies on the City’s daily operating budget to cover expenses, including increasingly costly emergency repair projects. Therefore, funding for stormwater utilizes the same funding source as other critical City services such as police, fire, roads, parks, and libraries.
Nevertheless, the Stormwater Department has had success in recent years to position future stormwater projects for funding. In 2022, the City secured a federal Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan of $733 million to fund infrastructure upgrades, including the replacement of deteriorated metal storm drain pipes that are the most common cause of emergency repairs.
Several recently completed projects funded through the WIFIA loan are featured below. Many others are scheduled for completion within the next five years, with a significant proportion of the program funding dedicated to communities impacted by recent flooding in the Chollas Creek Watershed.
Mission Hills Stormwater Infrastructure Upgraded as City of San Diego Completes Major Project [insidesandiego.org]
Stormwater Infrastructure Upgrade Completed in Loma Portal [insidesandiego.org]
Kensington Pipeline Repair [instagram.com]
Neighbors Offer Suggestions for Stormwater Improvements During Workshops in Skyline [insidesandiego.org]"
