Poway, the "city in the country" known for its excellent schools and many recreational opportunities, has employed a more efficient and economical way to discharge storm water, one of the most significant sources of water pollution in Southern California.

In the South Poway Business Park, five flood control basins will be converted into collection sites for storm water. This will allow the city to treat storm water on a mass scale. It will also allow city businesses and developers to cut costs for new projects and provide existing businesses with increased property tax revenue, since they will not have to pay individually to implement storm water runoff control systems.

In Poway, runoff from storm drains enters eight drainage basins. The majority of drainage is collected in three major creeks: Poway, Green Valley and Sycamore. Water from all of the creeks eventually flows into three Poway watersheds that impact other cities.

So far, Poway is the only city in San Diego County with permission to treat its storm water on such a mass scale.

Storm water runoff regulations have strained the budgets of local governments in San Diego County for years. In April 2001, the Regional Water Quality Control Board approved provisions called Best Management Practices, or BMPs, which required area developers and redevelopers to capture and treat the first six tenths of an inch of rainwater. At the time, the firm Environmental Business Solutions calculated that small cities would have to spend a minimum of $500,000 to meet the new requirements and large cities more than $1 million.

There is another set of demands that Poway and other cities have been required to meet, called Standard Urban Stormwater Management Practices, or SUSMP. SUSMP requires cities in San Diego County to prepare a prescribed storm water mitigation plan and treatment measures that retain a portion of storm water runoff on individual properties[SDS1].

Poway city officials are pleased to have found a cheaper way to meet the regulations.

"The more stringent standards were more difficult and expensive to achieve," said Niall Fritz, Poway's director of development services. He said that Poway studied the developments after the BMPs and SUSMP were approved. The city concluded that between 5 percent and 10 percent of a property's area would have to be devoted to the new requirements.

Ingrid Alverde, Poway's economic development director, emphasized the inconvenience and expense of the requirements.

"Normally each property handles its own storm water," she said. "Doing this is complicated -- they have to use a large portion of the property, or they have to install ... utilities. Some parts of the property are rendered unusable."

The detention basins have increased Poway's annual storm water budget from $700,000 to $2 million.

"There have been minor modifications to the basins, but they are big enough and able to work. We've done the studies," Fritz said.

He added, "Effectively we're taking hundreds of acres of other industrial properties and cleaning up their water too. Everyone is getting cheaper storm water as a result.