Every rainstorm in Bloomington ends up somewhere: in a storm drain, a pond, Nine Mile Creek, the Minnesota River. The city's Local Surface Water Management Plan decides how that water gets handled. It sets the city's goals and policies, lists known problems and the fixes for them, and lays out the implementation program and the money behind it. City staff also use it when they review permits and development proposals, so it shapes what gets built, not just which ponds get dredged.
The current plan was adopted by the City Council on June 25, 2018, and took effect for permit and development review the same day. It was written to meet the requirements of the 4 watershed bodies that overlap Bloomington: the Lower Minnesota River Watershed District, the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District, the Richfield-Bloomington Watershed Management Organization and the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District. It also had to satisfy the Metropolitan Council, Hennepin County, and state and federal rules. Any rewrite has to clear the same list.
The plan sits alongside several others. Those documents depend on each other, and changes to one usually show up in the others.
City of Bloomington@CityofBloomingtonMNStaff list the city's major guiding plans for the Planning Commission, with the surface water management plan among them.02/01
Hiring a consultant through a request for proposals is a common way for the city to start a big plan rewrite. In August, the council approved a consultant contract for the Nine Mile Creek Lower Valley management plan renewal. That was a different plan with a different scope, but it went through the same kind of step that's on the agenda now.
City of Bloomington@CityofBloomingtonMNAfter a 5-1 vote on another item, a council member moves to award the contract for the Nine Mile Creek Lower Valley management plan renewal, an earlier plan update the city handed to a consultant.08/03
Where things stand now: staff have finished evaluating the proposals, and "Surface Water Management Plan Update – RFP Award Recommendation" is item 3.7 on the council's Oct. 26 consent agenda. Consent items are treated as routine and passed together in a single motion. The published agenda doesn't name the recommended firm or the contract amount. Picking a consultant is only the first step. The new plan itself still has to be drafted and adopted.
The council meets Monday, Oct. 26, at 6:30 p.m. in Council Chambers at Bloomington Civic Plaza, 1800 W. Old Shakopee Road. The same agenda includes a construction manager contract for Fire Station 2 and the MnDOT turnback of frontage roads along I-494 and Interstate 35W. If the contract is approved, the next things to watch for are the consultant's work schedule and the city's first chances for the public to weigh in on the draft.
To weigh in, you can contact your council member before Monday. If you have a recurring problem with drainage, flooding or water quality in your neighborhood, it's worth getting it on record now, while the plan's problem list is being rewritten.
