Lake Monroe. Griffy Lake. Bean Blossom Creek. Many of Monroe County’s lakes and streams are on a list of impaired waterways, with problems including E. coli contamination and algae, along with PCBs and mercury in fish tissue.

County officials have proposed creating a new utility in an effort to reduce pollution from stormwater runoff, thereby working toward the federal Clean Water Act’s goals of making water fishable and swimmable.

That utility is one step closer to becoming reality. The county commissioners recently signed a contract with Bloomington consulting firm Image Matters to calculate the entire amount of impervious surface in the county, which could generate an average property square footage for single-family homes and then be used to set a flat fee for stormwater run-off. (Impervious surfaces are mainly constructed areas such as rooftops, sidewalks or roads, as opposed to a pervious surface like a yard.)