JACKSON, Wyo. — At the April 20 Town Council workshop meeting, Public Works Director Johnny Ziem presented a high-level look at how Jackson might implement stormwater utility fees. Previously, Town Councilors endorsed a Strategic Stormwater Program Plan (SSPP) during the Town Council Workshop on Dec. 15, 2025, which aims to protect water quality in Jackson and eventually remove Flat Creek from Wyoming’s 303(d) impaired bodies list.
Ziem began by discussing options for how a fee structure would work for a stormwater utility.
“To collect stormwater fees, a utility must decide on an appropriate metric to both determine the fee and to provide equity to customers,” the Public Works Department staff report reads. “One example, and the most used by municipalities, is the Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU). An ERU is a standardized unit of measure used by utilities to equate the stormwater runoff from properties. For example, a utility may decide that one ERU equals 2,000 gallons of water. If a resident is responsible for 10,000 gallons of stormwater in a month, they would be charged five ERU’s. This metric is used by utilities in determining water, sewer, and stormwater fees.”
An ERU could measure “impervious surfaces, ” Ziem went on to explain, which are things such as roofs, driveways, parking lots, sidewalks and decks. Those surfaces do not allow for drainage directly into the soil, so would flow elsewhere.
Money collected from the established utility fees would be used toward protecting and improving the water quality and wildlife habitat of the creeks in the Town of Jackson and maintenance and operational costs to meet pollution prevention goals, among other objectives.
Councilor Kevin Regan asked how the Town would determine who is subject to fees and what thresholds would trigger them. In response, Ziem explained that the fees could apply universally to all properties, including those owned by the Town, since roads are considered part of the stormwater system.
Other goals noted in the SSPP discussed in December include updating land development regulations and creating manuals to guide development from a flooding and water quality perspective and establishing a timeline to implement “critical” improvements to the water management systems in town.
The eventual success of the program, according to Ziem, would be represented by two things. First, the overall health of the local bodies of water would improve — with the ultimate success being removing Flat Creek from the 303(d) list of impaired bodies. Second, the Town would have the ability to use fees to fund a utility that has not yet had funding associated with it in Jackson.
Expect councilors to discuss this topic further in the coming months.
