From Alison Prost, Maryland Executive Director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation:
The so-called “rain tax” is easy to demonize. It makes a convenient political target (“Governor Larry Hogan Introduces Legislation to Repeal ‘Rain Tax,’” Feb. 12). What’s harder is to help people understand the reason for the fee, and the risk to Baltimore and Harford counties of reducing the fee or getting rid of it altogether.
First, some history. The 2012 law requiring ten jurisdictions to establish some level of fee came after years of frustration. Since the early 1990’s, the ten jurisdictions have been required by the federal Clean Water Act to meet specific goals to reduce polluted run-off. The federal law singled out these 10 jurisdictions because polluted run-off is often the biggest source of water pollution to urban and suburban rivers and creeks, and because specific rivers in these localities were badly fouled.
In the Patapsco River, for instances, about 23 percent of the nitrogen pollution and 69 percent of sediment pollution comes from the lawn fertilizer, pet waste, construction site dirt and other contaminants that run off the landscape after a storm. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared the Patapsco, as well as other rivers in Baltimore County as “impaired” with too much pollution, including the Gunpowder River, Lower Gunpowder Falls, Middle River, Back River, and Jones Falls.
In Harford County, the Bush River, Lower Winters Run, Atkisson River, and Bynum Run are impaired, along with the Gunpowder, according to EPA. Run-off is a major culprit. In the Bush River, for instance, about 34 percent of nitrogen pollution is from polluted run-off.
What does this mean for residents of these counties? This past summer a scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation took some water samples after a major rain storm at a popular swimming hole located on a tributary of the Gunpowder River in Baltimore County. Swimmers didn’t realize it but the water had bacteria counts as high as 36 times the safe level set by the EPA.
But the problem is the nine counties and Baltimore City have not reduced their polluted run-off sufficiently. Most have fallen fall short of goals set by the state, Harford particularly. Money is the issue. When it comes time to budget funds, cleaning up rivers and streams understandably gets short shrift compared to paying teachers, or maintaining water pipes. Before the 2012 law, for instance, Harford was reducing substantially its funding for pollution reduction. The negligence jeopardizes human health in these localities. The run-off problem also causes economic damage, such as flooding. It also prevents the state of Maryland from meeting its commitments to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
Given all this, the Maryland General Assembly decided in 2012 it had to act. It required the 10 jurisdictions to collect a fee that would be dedicated only to reducing runoff. The money couldn’t be hijacked for some other purpose. At the counties’ request, the legislature gave them and Baltimore City flexibility to set the size of the fee, and the means of collection. One size doesn’t fit all, the counties argued.
As a result the fee was set at various levels, with Frederick showing its distain by approving a one penny fee, and Carroll County refusing to collect any stormwater fee. Both counties promised to reduce polluted runoff using other revenues. Recently, Harford leaders voted to do the same, and Baltimore County is expected to significantly reduce its fee. Governor Hogan also has proposed legislation to repeal the entire 2012 law.
So where does that leave us? Back at square one. We have promises from the ten jurisdictions that they now will do the work, promises that they failed to keep for years prior to the 2012 law. It also means that in places such as Baltimore County critical new programs funded from the stormwater fee likely will now be demolished or downsized. For instance, the county’s Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability has an outstanding tree-planting program to reforest 1,500 acres of the suburban county by 2025. Trees planted in key drainage areas are one of the most cost-effective means of reducing polluted runoff. Will that program survive now?
The 2012 law provides some accountability for reduced pollution. Without the law, we will have nothing more than promises. Again. But words will do nothing to make the rivers of Baltimore and Harford counties clean again.
We urge citizens to tell their state delegates and senators not to repeal the 2012 law, and to tell county leaders to reinstate a reasonable-sized fee to tackle a long-neglected problem.
Is Ms. Prost compensated by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation?
Ms. Prost is indeed with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Someone needs to audit that tangled web! But more to the point – Ms. Prost has been making the rounds, sounding the alarm for all concerned environmentalists to support this “reasonable” tax. Apparently, cleaning up the bay can only be done on the backs of the middle class. Why has the Chesapeake Bay Foundation refused to work with environmental advocates like the Clean Chesapeake Coalition?
And every Harford County resident should be calling Mary Ann Lisanti’s office to demand she co-sponsor and support these repeal bills. So far she has shown no interest.
Clean Chesapeake Coalition operates out of the law firm of Funk & Bolton. That law firm’s agenda may be equally called into question as that of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
How do you know that?
Google.
The Coalition points its finger at Conowingo Dam:
“The Coalition believes that notwithstanding these oppressive Federal and State requirements, the Bay will nonetheless continue to be overwhelmed and polluted by the vast quanity [sic] of nutrients and sediment traveling into the Bay from the contaminated reservoir of the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River. This overriding problem as a whole is one that engages and deeply concerns the members of the Coalition, with its obvious dire economic and environmental consequences.”
http://www.cleanchesapeakecoalition.com/about-us/background/
This is contrary to current research::
“The study, to be released Thursday by state officials and the Army Corps of Engineers, concludes that the sediment washed into the bay from the Susquehanna after extreme weather mostly hurts a small part of the upper bay. The study was launched following Tropical Storm Lee three years ago.
Nutrient pollution from sewage plants, farms and urban runoff across the six-state watershed is the main threat to the bay, the study found, and wide-ranging cleanup efforts must continue if the Chesapeake is to be restored to health.”
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/blog/bs-md-conowingo-bay-study-20141112-story.html#page=1
Vicki – not much to untangle. You can go to CBF’s website and see all the financial information you want about CBF – as required by the IRS. How could CBF possibly gain anything from pushing the ‘rain tax’ if it’s so unpopular? What source of funding do you prefer to use for this job Vicki? Repealing this law just forces counties to find another source. The Carroll County times editorial board just said the same thing – and they are no bleeding liberals up there!
I don’t believe that Maryland will not” hijack” this money. The transportation fund has been robbed of taxpayer money for years by our own officials. You can argue from an environmental defense angle all day but you seem to underestimate or not understand taxpayer anger at dozens of tax increases, added fees, progressive taxes, etc. A Republican governor in Maryland is the result of this type of abuse of it’s citizens.
How could the State hijack County money?
Of course the state has hijacked money. How else do you think we’ve been operating with bloated budgets that must be “balanced”?
The shortfalls come from the special funds – the Chesapeake Bay Restoration fund, the Transportation Trust fund, Project Open Space, the Pension funds, the Injured Workers Insurance funds, and state University funds to name a few.
Google THAT. Maryland has been robbing Peter to pay Paul for over five years now.
I agree with you regarding the misuse of state taxes used for other purposes than intended. Unfortunately, that is not the crux of Freestate?’s statement. He or she clearly states that state government will find away to take local taxes collected by Harford County and find different ways to spend it. I questioned the ability of the state to seize County funds for its own use.
That question remains unanswered. (The stormwater remediation tax is a local tax, levied and spent locally.)
Rain tax.
That’s the whole point of this controversial law – that the locals get to keep whatever money they collect. By law the state can’t get its hands on the stormwater fee revenues. And Ms. Prost means that within the county the revenue can only by used for reducing this type of pollution – by law. Most revenue collected by governments – such as gas tax money – can actually be used for other purposes. Not this money.
what was the “flush” tax for?
Upgrades for sewage treatment plants.
Expansions for waste water treatment plants, nitrogen removal upgrades.
Heck, you can see with your own eyes one of the hottest jobs going on right now, involving wastewater infrastructure that’s started right there on Route 40 near Long Bar Harbor.
We should do what Virginia did.
Every tax has a good reason. They stay up late at night in Annapolis thinking of ways to frame a new tax, and when that doesn’t work some special interest group shows up to lobby for money with a new idea.
Only evil people are against new taxes for good things…. sure, I get it. How about they just hold my wallet and let me have a few dollars when I want to go to the store. I bet when my wallet is empty they will tell me know.
Perhaps it is stupid to suggest that the county/state start saying all these things are good but we just can’t ask the taxpayers to pay anymore. Corporations have fled the state as well as countless other businesses. We have to cut government if we expect businesses to want to move here and create jobs.
know = no
This citizen will not be writing his legislators asking that the fee be re-imposed…problem one: this county never had a plan for what it would do with this money. That is theft as far as I’m concerned.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation was founded in 1967, over 35 years and still the bay is no better today!?!
EPA:
“Bay water quality monitoring data confirm the significant progress made in reducing phosphorus from nonpoint sources and municipal point sources but indicate that further progress is needed toward reducing nitrogen loadings.”
http://www.epa.gov/oaqps001/gr8water/xbrochure/chesapea.html
They should only tax HCPS school teachers.
This article is hilarious. Ms. Prost postures that the reason that only 10 + 1 jurisdictions were included in this bill was because they have the most polluted waterways. That is 100% complete and utter nonsense and BS propaganda.
The reasons were solely POLITICAL. The “no” votes from G.A. representatives from these 10 + 1 jurisdictions had to be counterbalanced by the “yes” votes of those from Maryland’s other 20+ counties. That is, those who wouldn’t be required to pay… easier to support such a bill for those folks when it doesn’t force them to raise taxes on THEIR citizens. If you can’t see how obvious this is, then you need to get an education.
There was NO WAY this would pass if it required all of Maryland’s counties to impose a fee. It’s 100% politics, just like this game that Ms. Prost and her organization are trying to play here on The Dagger.
Ms Prost disagrees with your statement because it directly interferes with her capability to earn a pay check. Oh…and pollution is bad and all that stuff, too.
The reason those 10 jurisdictions are on the hook for this is because they are the only ones that have Phase I MS4 permits. They are required to have Phase I, vs Phase II, permits because their populations are above a certain threshold. Why CBF and every other yahoo that has ever written about the apocalyptic ‘rain tax’ has missed this point is beyond comprehension. This speaks to the general ignorance on everyone’s part about this subject.
When you collect and discharge storm water through a pipe, you then own it. If you are a Phase I MS4 county and want to get out of the ‘rain tax’, then the simple fix is to plug all of your storm sewer pipes. You might have a few unhappy residents, but that’s a small price to pay in order to get out of yet another unbearable tax burden.
I want my total state and Federal tax bill reduced. Period. That is why I voted for Hogan and why he was elected. You people out there who are up in arms because your pet project and your pet organization might get less money are the problem now. I don’t want the rate of increase cut, I want the whole damn tax bill reduced. And if the politicians in Annapolis still don’t get it then there is another election coming.