San Bernardino officials say water-board permit fees strain public-safety maintenance; staff offer follow-up

San Bernardino County public-works officials urged the State Water Resources Control Board to consider fee adjustments for temporary, emergency and routine maintenance projects used for public safety, saying the current fee schedule does not distinguish those short-term activities from permanent development.

Michelle Derry of the San Bernardino County Flood Control District and Public Works described multiple recent emergencies in burn-scarred areas and asked whether the water board could reduce fees for short-term public-safety work. “When we submit our applications... we're gonna be paying millions of dollars in fees,” Derry said, adding that a single permit for a linear, temporary maintenance project could cost roughly $365,000 under the current fee schedule.

Why it matters: Derry and other local officials said these linear flood-control and sediment-removal projects are essential to protect downstream communities after wildfires and storms. They argued the current fee calculation — which can scale with project footprint or linear length — imposes very high costs on routine public-safety work and could reduce funds available for on-the-ground protection.

Board response and next steps: David Ciccarelli and other state staff said the place to start is program staff who design fee methodologies. Phil Crater, deputy director of Division of Water Quality, and other staff agreed to open follow-up discussions with San Bernardino County and regional program managers. Phil and David specifically offered contacts and asked Michelle Derry to contact Phil, David or program manager Karen (name provided in the meeting) to schedule a focused conversation. Phil said the board does not currently exempt emergency work from fees under the uniform schedule but expressed willingness to “look at” whether emergency or public-safety projects could be treated differently going forward.

Context and examples from stakeholders: Derry said the county manages more than 122,000 acres of fire-scarred lands and already pays significant other permitting fees to departments such as California Department of Fish and Wildlife; the county’s water-board fees for large, temporary, linear projects add materially to those costs.

Ending: State staff invited San Bernardino County and other local agencies to follow up offline; they said program staff will examine whether a different approach — for example, an emergency exemption or different linear-calculation method for public-safety maintenance — is feasible within existing authority and orders.