After years of no penalties, Richmond DPU wants the power to fine stormwater violations
Although officials with Richmond’s Department of Public Utilities say violations of stormwater, erosion and other water discharge rules are likely occurring every year, the city has issued zero fines for those infractions.
“We have no record of DPU ever sending any of these violations through the city attorney’s office,” Lee Crowell, a deputy director for the department, told a City Council committee Wednesday.
As a result, DPU is now asking for a change to city code that would let Director Scott Morris levy and collect civil penalties from companies and people that break the rules in an effort to discourage bad behavior and allow the city to recover some of its costs for investigating and monitoring violations.
Changing the code would ensure “that we actually have the tools before us that allow a more equitable response to the types of violations that we see on a regular basis,” said Crowell.
Currently, DPU has to go through the courts to impose and collect civil penalties — a process that Morris and Crowell said is burdensome in terms of both time and resources and requires the involvement of the city attorney’s office.
“It’s also a highly disproportionate use of resources when we’re talking about a few hundred dollars to maybe a couple thousand dollars in penalties,” said Crowell.
The proposed approach, which state law allows Richmond to adopt, would let DPU impose and collect the penalties for water quality violations itself, without having to go through a formal judicial process.
Michael Phillips
Penalties could be collected administratively for erosion and stormwater violations at construction sites, the failure of an industrial facility to adequately treat any discharges into the city’s stormwater system and any release of pollutants into the city’s sewers or waters.
The amount of the penalties would be subject to caps laid out in state law and would depend on the type of violation that occurred. The civil penalty for a stormwater and erosion violation, for example, cannot be less than $100 or more than $1,000, although that fine can be imposed for every day the violation occurs. In total, the penalty can’t exceed $10,000.
Exactly how often those infractions are occurring isn’t clear. Asked by Councilor Kenya Gibson (3rd District) for an estimate of frequency, Crowell said he could only speculate, but “it wouldn’t be in the hundreds of cases.”
Money collected from the penalties would flow into the city’s stormwater fund.
To go into effect, the proposal will need to win a vote of approval from the full City Council. It sailed through the Council’s Governmental Operations Committee with no resistance Wednesday.
Contact Reporter Sarah Vogelsong at svogelsong@richmonder.org
