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n August, a historic rainfall brought stormwater runoff into the basement level of Robert Nairn’s laboratories in the Carson Engineering Center, leaving students to hurriedly find ways to prevent damage to equipment.

Stormwater runoff entering Nairn’s laboratory, which houses high-end instruments and has received more than $4 million in research grants, has been recurring for many years and is now the new normal as the civil engineering and environmental science professor continues to conduct research for the Center for Restoration of Ecosystems and Watersheds.

“Problems like these have direct impacts on research productivity and graduate student success,” Robert Nairn said.

These types of issues occur because Norman has poor stormwater infrastructure and is the largest city in Oklahoma without a dedicated stormwater utility that would provide financial resources to address problems with water quality and quantity, Robert Nairn said.

Norman receives up to 70 percent of its drinking water from Lake Thunderbird, but the lake is on the list of impaired water bodies for the state of Oklahoma due to high levels of pollutants from increasing urban developments that run off into the lake from impervious surfaces, Robert Nairn said.

This high level of pollutants, which includes various chemicals and unsafe compounds, has previously left city officials concerned that if changes do not happen, the lake will no longer be a viable drinking source.

But all utility increases in Norman must be voted on by residents and, after 71 percent of Norman voters rejected a 2016 election measure that would have given the city a new stormwater funding package, hopes rest on a 16-member volunteer committee working to create solutions.

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s the third-largest city in Oklahoma, Norman is experiencing rapid growth with urban and rural development, said Carrie Evenson, the Norman stormwater program manager responsible for stormwater upkeep around the city.

Evenson said there is infrastructure in Norman today that was completed more than 80 years ago but is still in the ground. Imhoff Creek, for example, has a rockline channel that was built during the Depression era as an attempt to get individuals back to work in government work programs.

“We have infrastructure in place that was built when the population was probably in the single-thousands, maybe 10,000 people, and we are still using that infrastructure today when the population is over 120,000,” Robert Nairn said.

Every time it rains, water runs along curbs and down into storm drains. That water is taken directly to creeks and streams that flow to Lake Thunderbird and the Canadian River.

Runoff water is different from water that is flushed from the toilet, for example, in that it runs off impervious surfaces, which are surfaces that do not allow water to be absorbed into the ground. This means the runoff does not go through Norman’s water infrastructure and does not go through any process to improve the quality of the water to make it acceptable for a specific end-use, like drinking.

“That is a big misconception that some people have,” Evenson said. “That is not the case for stormwater —it does not get treated. Anything that picks up as the water flows down the street or along our property it takes with it into our creeks and streams.”

Cindy Rosenthal, Norman mayor from 2007 to 2016, pulled together a team of individuals to create a stormwater master plan that was completed October 2009. The team looked at how stormwater runoff is impacting Norman residents, what plans would help fix the issue, the cost of improving stormwater infrastructure and what the implications would be if the issue were not fixed, said Amanda Nairn, co-chair of the Norman Stormwater Citizen Committee and wife of Robert Nairn.

“It took several years and was approved by council in 2009, and one of the No. 1 recommendations was instituting a stormwater utility,” Amanda Nairn said.

Current Norman Mayor Lynne Miller was among the members of the city council who presented the failed stormwater proposal to Norman voters and is a liason for the committee.

“Since 2008, we have spent a lot of time studying what the issues are, and in the last three years, we spent a lot of time educating the people of Norman about the problems,” Miller said.

A variety of issues, such as poor drainage systems and a high number of streams cutting across Norman, contribute to high flooding rates in the city, Miller said.

“We have one gentleman on the committee, and his house has flooded three times,” Miller said. “He has had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix his house because of flooding.”

Amanda Nairn said the need for improved maintenance and keeping infrastructure up to date was not realized until the early 1980s.

“In the early ‘80s, (cities) started to require early retention ponds and trying to slow that water down,” Amanda Nairn said. “The city does not own those ponds — the neighborhoods do, and they are not experts on how to manage them and take care of them properly.”

And as city development has grown over the years, other cities realized they would need dedicated funds to manage stormwater issues, Amanda Nairn said. Oklahoma City, Tulsa and other cities around Norman had been collecting funds for stormwater utility fees for 10 years.

Since the masterplan being finished in 2009 and the failed 2016 stormwater utility vote, solutions haven’t been presented for Norman. But there is hope the new advisory committee will assuage those concerns.