DALTON, Ga. — The Dalton City Council held the first reading of an ordinance that would create a stormwater fee Monday night. But Mayor Dennis Mock said the council members aren’t going to rush to set any rates.

City officials are still working on commercial and industrial rates. But in a press release last week they said the city was looking at a $2 a month charge for residential water customers. But Mock says there’s a chance that rate could be reduced before it is officially adopted by the council.

“We aren’t going to rush. We aren’t going to make any decision until we have all of our facts in,” Mock said.

The city has more than 5,000 stormwater structures and 89 miles of stormwater pipes to maintain.

“We’ve got to inspect a fifth of those pipes every year and make sure that all of that is maintained,” said Assistant Public Works Director Andrew Parker.

Parker said the city is trying to develop a fee to generate $628,000 a year to fund the four-man crew that inspects and maintains that infrastructure as well as to fund the $175,000 the city pays the Whitfield County engineering department to manage regulatory, plan review and permitting aspects of stormwater control. The city has been paying those costs out of general revenue since it assumed responsibility for stormwater control from Dalton Utilities in 2015.

According to data provided by Dalton Utilities, when it managed stormwater control for the city, it charged residential customers a fee of $1 a month. Its total revenue from stormwater fees, including those charged to commercial and industrial customers, was $453,523 in 2014.

“I don’t think Dalton Utilities had a dedicated crew for stormwater control but was using its regular employees,” Parker said.

The city of Dalton has a $30.4 million 2018 budget, but council members said the city cannot continue to fund stormwater control out of general fund spending.

“We want to adopt and implement a policy that is fair and sustainable to take care of the problems that do exist with stormwater,” said council member Annalee Harlan.

Council member Gary Crews said it is important to have a “dedicated stream” of funding for stormwater control because the risks of failing to control it are so great.

Parker said failure to comply with state and federal stormwater laws could lead to fines against the city of up to $10,000 a day and could potentially endanger Dalton Utilities’ water permits.