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The News Virginian announced today that a $1.2 million annual budget has been agreed upon for a new stormwater program.
Under a $1.2
million program, the city keeps all the maintenance plans, improvement
projects and employees it had mapped out from the start. The city would
slash about $200,000 from the original budget by using general tax
money instead of stormwater fees to pay for one-time startup costs such
as new vehicles and office equipment.
The City Council decided to pay $1.2 million instead of $900,000 which would have only provided maintenance for half of the year.
However, they are still somewhat undecided on how the new tax burden will be distributed. One Council Member is favoring placing more of a burden on residents, as the per resident increase would be less per capita than businesses.
I’m very surprised that virtually none of these new programs seem to plan on using enforcement to generate income. While Phase II requirements are considered an unfunded mandate by the federal government, options exist. Phase II regulations not only allow MS4s to regulate citizens and businesses, they require it.
Developing a fine for non-compliance can serve two-fold. It can generate more revenue with little effort for the municipality while at the same time increasing compliance.
An added benefit is that fines are usually pretty straightforward. You pay the fine or you go to jail. Systems of fee credits and exemptions often become a giant political morass and unnecessarily complicated.
-Stormwater Guru
Technorati Tags: stormwater, virginia, taxes
Phase II stormwater taxes Virginia
A proposed property tax is being put on the ballot in Aspen, Colorado in order to pay for the cities stormwater management plan.
The dedicated property tax would be used to fund the annual costs of the program, plus all of the capital investments. City officials estimate that the property tax would generate about $12 million over the next 15 years. The tax would be equal to a single-family homeowner paying an estimated $13.24 a month; an owner of affordable housing paying $0.62 a month and a large commercial property owner paying $606.70 a month, according to a memo written by Aragon………
A development fee also is proposed, which would be assessed against all properties at the time of building the system. The fee would be $2.88 per square foot of the proposed impervious area. Proceeds from that fee would be used to pay for improvements to the storm sewer collection system.
This route is the way that many municipalities are beginning to go in order to fund their Phase II stormwater requirements. I am somewhat surprised that Aspen decided to levy the development tax on top of the property tax. Does this mean that Aspen is going to provide the controls and maintain compliance for new developments? Somehow I doubt it.
A 2,500 square foot impervious footprint on a new home would now cost $8,000 more. I wonder if this is going to lead to a lot of ‘green’ roofs. If I was a developer, it seems it would almost be cost effective to put in rooftop gardens etc.
I wonder why the city didn’t choose to place the tax instead on sales tax. Aspen usually draws a significant number of tourists each year, so in effect the city is taxing relatively few for the stormwater pollution of many.
-Stormwater Guru
Aspen Colorado MS4 Phase II Pollution News stormwater taxes
A high end suburb of San Antonio, Texas announced that they will be issuing a $7.5 million in bonds to pay for, among other things, their stormwater drainage plan.
Phase I projects include:
- The purchase of a new ladder truck for the Fire Department.
- Repairs, extensions and improvements to the city’s water and sewer system.
- Street and sidewalk improvements.
- The creation of a stormwater drainage master plan.
- Renovations to the City Hall complex and fire station
- Professional services related to the capital projects.
This plan is the first stage in Alamo Heights’ compliance with the new Phase II regulations passed in Texas 2 weeks ago. MS4s have until Feb 11, 2008 to file their NOIs with the State Agency, the TCEQ.
-Stormwater Guru
alamo heights MS4 Phase II san antonio stormwater taxes Texas
The Stormwater Ordinance is one of the first steps necessary to comply with Phase II Requirements. Manhattan, Kansas announced this morning that they have passed their ordinance.
In brief the ordinance prohibits the following:
domestic sewage or septic tank waste, garbage, industrial waste, wastewater that contains soap, detergent, degreaser or solvent; yard wastes that have been moved or gathered by a person, any discharge from a petroleum storage tank, and effluent from a cooling tower, condenser, compressor, emissions filter; or the blowdown from a boiler.
The article also includes a pretty embarrasing quote from one of the city commissioners:
Commissioner Mark Hatesohl said the city was a “bad polluter” in the way it applies large volumes of salt each winter to streets. He said the city needed “a more environmentally friendly ice-melter.”
It’s okay Mark, de-icing activities are almost universally allowed as permitted non-stormwater discharges.
What’s interesting about the announcement is that violation of the ordinance appears to be a misdemeanor offense. This is probably a mistake. By making it a criminal offense, you have created a situation where the punishment may not meet the crime. Are you going to give a guy who dumps a two gallon bucket of car wash soap down the storm drain the same punishment as someone who decides to empty out 100 paint cans or a lawn service that dumps thousands of pounds of clippings down the drain?
Instead, a fine structure would be more appropriate for this kind of ordinance. Start it at $50 and scale it up to as much as $10,000 per incident. That way you can create an appropriate response for violators.
-Stormwater Guru
Technorati Tags: stormwater, K-state, Kansas, Mark Hatesohl, Manhattan
Kansas Mark Hatesohl MS4 ordinance Phase II stormwater
From the Albany, IN News and Tribune:
Amid legal challenges to a contract they signed, all three members of the city’s Stormwater Board quit at the end of the monthly meeting Friday morning.
Chairman Tim Deatrick and Al Goodman had voted at the previous meeting July 20 to sign a three-year operating deal with Environmental Management Corp. that would effectively “privatize” the city’s stormwater drainage utility, taking its employees off the city payroll. Sam Asberry voted against the motion.
In response to the contract, the local union for drainage employees obtained a restraining order, citing insufficient notice for an action that would amount to a layoff.
After reading the article, I don’t blame the board for quitting. They did their research and found out that privatizing the stormwater program was the most cost-effective way to go. This is no surprise as small MS4s just will not be able to achieve the economies of scale necessary to make these programs feasible. Private companies are the natural response to this. Capitalism is more efficient than government.
As it is a service instead of contract work, I also support the view that the work did not need to be bid out. They had a reliable operator with whom they had a working relationship with. Why make this harder than it should be?
-Stormwater Guru
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Yesterday afternoon the Phase II Small MS4 permit (TXR040000) was approved in Texas and went into effect. This will have some major effects on Stormwater Management in the state. Not the least of which is that all of the small MS4s (Texas says 500 but my count puts it closer to 1000) will have to begin putting their own stormwater programs into place.
This Permit was originally supposed to have gone into effect in 2003 but because of a tie up in the Supreme Court, Texas waited for official guidance from the EPA.
The passage can be seen here. It was docket number 73 and is discussed about halfway through the videocast.
One thing I found curious is the commission seemed to think that the NOIs that were going to be submitted were going to be the bulk of the work. I was extremely surprised to not even see a passing mention of the annual reporting requirements, of which there are many.
The Permit has some lofty goals for the permit term and is heavily focused on education. This does not mean that regulatory activity will not increase. These Small MS4s will regulate their cities towns and districts and Texas will in turn regulate the MS4s
In the coming weeks and months, I will document developments as I am able concerning this permit.
-Stormwater Guru
MS4 Permits Phase II stormwater Texas TXR040000
