Stormwater charge coming to Batavia?

The Batavia City Council is considering establishing a stormwater utility and charging residents and other entities to maintain and repair the city’s drainage system.

The council will hear a presentation Tuesday from an engineering firm about how it could establish such a utility and how it would work. The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. at the Batavia Government Center, 100 N. Island Ave.

According to a memo about the presentation, the city’s public works and engineering departments have been unable to keep up with maintenance and repairs of storm sewers, river and creek shorelines, and detention and retention ponds.

A city engineer, Andrea Podraza, wrote that with more money, the city could hire more workers to do the work. It could also create a master plan for drainage, she wrote.

City workers propose budgeting up to $35,000 for an initial feasibility study, $60,000 for further study and $100,000 for implementation, for the 2014 budget.

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning reported that as of January 2013, 24 Illinois towns had stormwater utilities. Eight of them were in the Chicago area, including Aurora, Downers Grove and Rolling Meadows.