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Stormwater manager outlines simpler fee formula and long-term drainage projects
Summary
Taylor Brewer told the Public Facilities committee the county will simplify its stormwater fee calculation and prioritize parcel-level drainage fixes after recent studies; crews are responding to flooding while staff plans multimillion-dollar capital projects for tougher problem areas.
Taylor Brewer, the county stormwater manager, told the Beaufort County Public Facilities & Committee on Aug. 18 that the county plans to simplify a "very complicated" stormwater fee formula and improve transparency in how fees are calculated.
"Our goal is to make the fee calculation process simpler and easier to understand so taxpayers know exactly how their fees are determined," Brewer said, explaining that fees support maintenance of pipes and ditches and a capital improvement program for larger construction projects.
Brewer described how the department currently contracts consultants to perform tax-run calculations and how work flows from citizen complaints through drainage studies to construction: consultants identify blockages in studies, staff turns recommendations into projects, and the county typically runs one to two drainage studies at a time to ensure follow-through. She cited Wolpert's 2022 Saint Helena study and a 2024 watershed-level assessment on northern Ladies Island as examples that have led to targeted pipe replacements and more localized, parcel-level work.
Council members pressed for concrete responses to recent flooding. One member cited two feet of standing water at a private church property after a downpour; Brewer said crews went to affected yards with pumps but had nowhere to discharge stormwater without impacting neighbors, so short-term pumping sometimes proves infeasible. She said the county is coordinating with the state Department of Transportation and exploring creative, long-term projects in the "$1,000,000" range to address recurring problem areas.
Brewer also previewed a planned countywide prioritization produced from the drainage studies, describing a red/yellow/green ranking to identify the most urgent sites first. "We have probably two or three more drainage studies to go before we can complete the entire county," she said, and pledged to share a project-priority list with council members when studies are complete.
The committee did not take formal action on policy changes at the meeting; staff said future meetings will include more granular cost and priority data as the studies and project lists are completed.
