In addressing its public service, flood hazard reduction, water quality, floodplain habitat, and financial accountability responsibilities, Surface Water Management employs a comprehensive basin approach. This approach is based on multiple benefits of surface water management, employing environmentally-sensitive practices.
Surface Water Management is developing 10 basin plans that cover all 26 Pierce County basins. The basin plans are being developed to update the County's 1991 surface water management plan. That plan was develop prior to passage of the state's Growth Management Act, adoption of the County's Comprehensive Land Use Plan, issuance of the state's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) municipal stormwater permit to Pierce County, and listing of chinook salmon and bulltrout under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). These events and others, including designations of numerous Pierce County water bodies on the state's polluted waters list (303d list) and status under the federal Community Rating System (CRS) for flood hazard reduction, have necessitated Surface Water Management' integrated basin approach. Finally, the basin plans ensure financial accountability of the program by directing expenditures collected within individual basins to the surface water management priorities in those basins.
