Everyone in town agrees that Colorado Springs has huge stormwater needs.

The challenge: Paying for them.

Mayor Steve Bach is applying pressure on the City Council to ferret out inefficiencies in Colorado Springs Utilities’ existing budget to help pay for the massive backlog even though stormwater is a municipal obligation.

On Tuesday, the mayor reiterated that the city needs to make stormwater a priority, but he hasn’t laid out a specific plan to pay for it.

Bach said his administration inherited “upwards of a billion” dollars in unfunded capital needs, including stormwater, and that the city needed to “come to grips” with the problem.

“The day of reckoning is in front of us,” Bach said.

The lack of stormwater funding has other consequences that City Attorney Chris Melcher has said obligates Utilities, a billion-dollar-plus enterprise of the city.

Stormwater is a crucial element of the 62-mile Southern Delivery System water pipeline that Utilities is building between Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

In March, Melcher warned city officials that stormwater was a pressing need, especially since a permit from Pueblo County to build SDS was at stake.

At the time, Melcher urged the mayor and council, which doubles as the Utilities Board, to work together on a funding solution. He said Utilities had a “shared interest” with the city government to ensure that an effective stormwater system with a steady source of funding was in place.

The Board of Pueblo County Commissioners, which issued the so-called 1041 permit for SDS, is now applying pressure on the city, too. The board sent Bach and the council a letter May 3, saying it was “encouraged” by reports that the city was exploring ways to fund stormwater but that it needed to act fast.

“We urge you to take immediate action to solve this funding deficit. Life and property within both El Paso County and Pueblo County are in peril each day that the City fails to control its stormwater flows in Fountain Creek,” they wrote.

The commissioners also said Colorado Springs was failing to live up to its promises. Before issuing the 1041 permit for SDS, they said, they relied on “pledges and commitments” that the city would “implement long overdue mitigation in Fountain Creek.”

“A key component was the Stormwater Enterprise,” they wrote. “Unfortunately, in December 2009, only a few months after it obtained its SDS permits, Colorado Springs Council voted to abolish its Stormwater Enterprise fees.”

SDS spokeswoman Janet Rummel said the city’s stormwater issue is much broader than SDS.

“Not only is utilities infrastructure impacted by stormwater run-off, but City and County roads and bridges are also affected for example,” she said in an email.

“That’s why Colorado Springs Utilities is working with others in El Paso County to identify a source of sustainable funding for stormwater management in our community. An initial step in that process is the recent study by Summit Economics,” she said.

The Summit Economics study identified a “significant regional need for stormwater management across both El Paso County and the city of Pueblo,” said Larry Small, executive director of the Fountain Creek Watershed, Flood Control and Greenway District. The study was funded by Utilities, El Paso County and the Pikes Peak Regional Water Authority, and the district managed it for them, said Small, who is Colorado Springs’ former vice mayor.

The report found about $750 million in unmet stormwater management needs across the region, and all but $2.7 million was in El Paso County, Small said.

The report also found that El Paso County’s unmet stormwater needs could be addressed with a half-cent sales tax, a 3.7 property tax mill levy or a $15 monthly fee for the average property owner, he said.

Small said the issue needs to be tackled regionally and that it would have to be done regardless of SDS.

“Even if the 1041 permit was not in place, every community has a moral obligation to protect downstream communities from its stormwater runoff,” he said.

Crews clean out the stormwater pond below Rampart High School Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2010 after the recent storms piled dirt and garbage around the drain. A crew of about 10 takes care of the about 75 ponds around the city. Photo by (Christian Murdock/The Gazette)