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Infrastructure and Planning Services <br />~, <br />requested afollow-up work session specifically to discuss the stream corridor acquisition <br />program. At a work session held in January 2006, Council reviewed the stream corridor <br />acquisition program and directed staff to increase user fees to provide approximately $300,000 <br />additional budget annually for an enhanced acquisition program. <br />In February 2006, Council held a work session to discuss the financial needs for the city's <br />transportation system: At that work session, Council directed that one-half of the funding for the <br />Street Trees/Median Maintenance Program be shifted from the Road Fund to the Stormwater <br />Fund, resulting in another $655,000 increase to the FY07 Stormwater budget. The combination <br />of this action and the two budget actions described earlier have increased the FY07 Stormwater <br />budget by roughly $1.28 million, which is still well under the $2.1 million in Stormwater service <br />level reductions taken in the FY05 budget process. The budget additions for FY07 will result in <br />a stormwater rate increase for FY07 of approximately 15%, which equates to a fee increase of <br />about $1.13 per month for a medium residential customer. For a commerciaUindustrial <br />customer, the monthly impervious surface fee based on square footage increases by an estimated <br />43 cents per 1,000 sq. ft. <br />In January 2005, Eugene submitted comments to DEQ on the proposed Total Maximum Daily <br />Loads (TMDLs), or pollutant load allocations, for the Willamette River watershed. Eugene, <br />along with other agencies within the Willamette River watershed, will be required to reduce <br />certain pollutants to ultimately achieve compliance with state water quality standards. It is <br />expected that implementation of the TMDL in Eugene will significantly affect at least <br />prioritization, if not level of, resources in the City's stormwater and wastewater programs. <br />The City's Comprehensive Stormwater Management Plan has expanded the City's stormwater <br />service to include water quality and natural resource enhancement objectives along with <br />conveyance. Implementation of new maintenance measures to carry out these multiple <br />objectives has focused on using selective hand labor techniques that are less environmentally <br />invasive than previous heavily mechanized approaches. The current approach to maintaining <br />open channels also includes bio-engineering bank repair projects, selective sediment and in-. <br />channel vegetation removal, and enhancing riparian vegetation along channel banks where <br />appropriate. <br />18. During the 2005 construction season, the city completed rehabilitation of approximately 12 <br />lane miles of streets. Four contracts were awarded on eight different street segments, including <br />the completion of one additional project made possible by the two-cent motor vehicle fuel tax <br />increase approved by City Council in January 2005. <br />Despite these accomplishments, the City's projected $102 million backlog of pavement <br />preservation projects as of December 2005 continues to be a significant issue. The <br />reimbursement component for transportation system development charges and the City's motor <br />vehicle fuel tax together generate roughly $4.4 million annually for pavement preservation, or <br />$4.1 million short of the Committee's 2001 recommendation of an $8.5 million annual <br />investment. The $.OS fuel tax is scheduled to revert back to $.03 in February 2008, which will <br />reduce annual revenues by roughly $1.4 million by FY09. <br />67 <br />