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Floods lead Eagle Point to consider utility fee By MELISSA MARTIN EAGLE POINT -- Rebecca and Rick Tree got a phone call from a friend in Brownsboro at 6:30 a.m. on New Year's Day 1997 telling them, "something has just given away and two feet of water is heading your way." What : Eagle Point City Council meeting When : 7:30 tonight Where : City Hall Issue : Storm drain utility fee "Rick went to alert all the neighbors," said Rebecca Tree, who lives near the intersection of Highway 62 and Royal Ave. "Then he loaded us up and we went to a friend's house in White City while he stayed to evacuate the neighbors." The New Year's Day disaster will always remain the most severe of three floods in five years that damaged the heating system in their Edith Circle home, destroyed their landscape and swept their tent trailer away. The Trees live in one of the most flood-prone neighborhoods in Eagle Point. Their story is an extreme example of why the City Council is considering creating a utility fee to rebuild and maintain Eagle Point's storm-drain system. The fee would cost residents an estimated $3 per month. The City Council will consider the utility fee when it meets at 7:30 p.m. today at City Hall. "Everybody in town, whether high or low, north or south, east or west, is part of the problem and needs to be part of the solution," said David Hussell, city administrator. "Everyone's water runs off onto someone else's property." The city catches snowmelt and rain from five different basins and sends 98 percent of it down Little Butte Creek, a Rogue River tributary that runs right through the middle of town. The city can't control Little Butte Creek, but it can do something about other flood factors -- ditches that spill their banks and the lack of storm-drain pipes. A storm-drain master plan calls for maintenance -- cleaning of 231 catch basins, for example -- as well as new projects -- such as pouring a concrete liner on Buchanan Ditch, the town's oldest irrigation ditch that runs nearly a mile long behind downtown homes, said Gary Shipley, public works director. The city is proposing to pay for the maintenance and capital improvements two ways: a storm-drain utility fee to generate an estimated $150,000 annually; and storm-drain system development charges paid by builders and passed on to new home buyers. While the city has required developers to put storm-drain systems in new subdivisions, older Eagle Point neighborhoods have had little or no storm-drain improvements since the town's incorporation in 1911. Meanwhile, the Trees' home on Edith Circle will be raised 24 inches to prevent future flood damage, a project paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. "There's a particular time of year when it starts to rain that I get a knot in my stomach," said Rebecca Tree, who supports the idea of a storm-drain utility fee. "But raising the house's foundation will give us some peace of mind." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA