Hey, Pueblo County, the city of Colorado Springs and Colorado Springs Utilities expect to spend a combined $27.8 million next year on stormwater projects.

The city and the public utility issued a joint news release Friday outlining their proposed stormwater-related expenditures in 2013. The funding includes $7 million to address impacts caused by the Waldo Canyon fire and $980,000 in salaries and benefits for employees who work explicitly on stormwater projects.

“I am pleased that our staff has been able to find additional resources for the city’s critical stormwater needs and will be coordinating with Colorado Springs Utilities to ensure their funding is also directed at the most urgent stormwater needs,” Mayor Steve Bach said in a statement.

For months, Bach advocated Utilities’ financial involvement in funding stormwater, which the four-service utility said it was already doing.

Helen Migchelbrink, the city’s public works director and city engineer, said the stormwater spending for 2013 was released in anticipation of a meeting Tuesday of a task force that will look at stormwater funding regionally.

“The information was put together primarily because we wanted to look at the total funding picture for the community, so people know what we’re doing,” she said.

“One of the main items (of the task force) is to gather all this information, and I hope that the other communities that are a part of it will bring their information on Tuesday,” she added.

The release of the information comes after Pueblo County commissioners complained that stormwater funding in Colorado Springs was “woefully inadequate.”

Chairman Anthony Nuñez and Commissioner John Cordova said they wanted to review the city’s list of projects before saying whether the funding was sufficient. But both said Colorado Springs has a long way to go.

Utilities obtained a permit from Pueblo to build the Southern Delivery System water pipeline with the promise to address stormwater needs.

“I realize it’s tough times, but with $500 million worth of needs … it seems a little shy,” Cordova said.

City Council President Scott Hente said Colorado Springs wanted to share its stormwater spending plans not only with Pueblo but the entire region.

“We take our stormwater commitments to the people who are downstream of us very seriously,” he said. “We want them to know, as well as for our community to know that we’re taking this seriously.”

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Contact Daniel Chacón: 476-1623

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Crews clean out a stormwater drainage in August 2010. Photo by The Gazette file