City may start charging for commercial stormwater inspections

The City of South Lake Tahoe looked into charging fees for mandated stormwater inspections of commercial businesses during Tuesday's Council meeting.

Since the City operates under a stormwater permit issued by the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board they must abide by their requirements which "include conducting commercial, industrial and municipal inspections in order to ensure commercial facilities are not discharging waste or pollutants into the City storm drain system."

In the past, the City was more reactive instead of proactive when dealing with spills of grease, oil and other fluids into stormwater drains. By annually inspecting facilities that have pollutants on site such as grease and oil, the Public Works department believes they'll keep those items out of the storm drains.

The City wants to be able to recover their costs when sending out personnel to do the inspections. Since the program is mandated it is legal for officials to try and recover the fees.

During Tuesday's presentation, Jason Burke, the Stormwater Program Coordinator, said they want to do more outreach to the affected businesses and provide education of proper handling of waste and pollutants.

Burke said kitchen grease in dumpsters is an issue with bears tipping them over and causing the leakage of grease into the drains. Another culprit are automobile repair businesses with their use of grease and oil.

If businesses do not comply the City can be fined by Lahontan. Fines would be much higher than charging a business two hours of labor for an inspection.

Burke will bring back the issue at the next City Council meeting for an official first reading.