Services Rendered and Fees

The surface water utility fee is a service charge for surface water management services. Surface water fees are primarily used to provide drainage and water quality services. These services include:

• Providing drainage improvements (such as a culvert replacement) system maintenance (such as catch basin cleaning and street sweeping)
• Water quality services (such as water quality monitoring)
• Funding activities required by the federally mandated National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit:
  • to monitor for illicit discharges,
  • conduct environmental education and outreach to the public
  • control runoff from development

History

The City of Marysville established a surface water utility in 1999. The utility fee was collected by Snohomish County on property tax statements. Starting in 2007, the City began collecting the fee independent ofthe County. Therefore, the feeis no longer on a customer’s property tax statement, but included on their City of Marysville utility bill as a “surface water” fee.

How Rates and Fees are Determined

The fee is based on the area of impervious surface on a parcel. Single-family residents pay a flat rate, while non-single family parcels are assessed a fee that is calculated using an Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU).
An ERU is the average square feet of impervious surface on a single family zoned parcel in the city. In Marysville, average square feet of impervious surface is 3,200 square feet. The monthly fee is determined for a all other non-single family parcels by assessing the square footage of impervious surface on the parcel, and then dividing by 1 ERU (3,200 square feet), and multiplying by the monthly rate (See below).