There better be a big pot of gold at the end of this rainbow or we're gonna get hosed! Noah, Lost chapter of Genesis.
A little more than a year ago, the Wilder administration and the City Council backed off a proposed stormwater fee to underwrite infrastructure projects, many of which the council killed off for financial reasons. This year the council decided it could put matters off no longer, and adopted a budget that included a stormwater fee.
City residents have received brochures. In a few weeks, they’ll receive the bills, which typically will run in the neigbhorhood of $50 for the year. Businesses will have to shell out, too.
Although we’re not in the habit of cheering taxes and fees, this one makes sense. The fee is based on the amount of impervious surface per property, and the money collected will go to the upkeep of stormwater drop inlets, ditches, catch basins, and so on. That marks an improvement over the practice of paying for these projects out of the general fund, under which the amount paid bore no relation to the amount of runoff from a property.
Like other localities, Richmond is under mandate to improve its stormwater system. The changes will help improve the health of the Chesapeake and forestall federal intervention in that regard. As the system matures, we’d like to see it incorporate incentives for owners who adopt measures — rain barrels, rain gardens, grassy swales, and so forth — that reduce runoff in environmentally friendly ways. Rewarding residents and businesses for taking such steps would make a smart system even smarter.
This — from an editorial at The Richmond Times Dispatch. Odd — in California we’re encouraged to forego lawns and hardscape instead. In the East they want to punish us for having hardscape and not enough lawn to absorb rainwater. Who put these assholes in charge? Good job muddle-headed “independent”. Remember — the problem is not liberals. The problem is the vast middle who are too busy self-medicating on Michael Jackson, Jon and Kate and their 8 victims, and whatever other celebutard shiny-thing that passes for “news” to care about taxes and liberty (here and abroad). They vote these dolts into office — these sniveling nosy busybodies.
h/t: Instapundit
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Oh good. Incentives for rain barrels. Nothing like being rewarded for creating mosquito nurseries.
Maybe Richmond should tear up all those paved roads and really get back to nature.
Actually– we should tear up the pavement — it is costing us way too much.
Pervious surfaces are where we are headed– and the sooner the better.
Stormwater is to our streams and rivers what smoking is to lungs. If we pave so rain water soaks in the ground instead of washing down the road (duh!) that helps filter pollutants, and replenishes ground water.
Mosquitoes are the least of your worries.
The real point of these fees is to start recognizing the costs of doing business as usual, and giving people incentives to change how they pave, landscape etc…
Most of these changes — toward pervious pavement, rain gardens, green roofs– will help us adapt to climate change, creating opportunities for small businesses to grow.
best fishes,
Timothy
Do you have to be “self-medicating” to note that water flows immediately off of paved surfaces and flush into rivers during a storm? Seriously, that does increase the potential for flooding downriver.
Does CA actually encourage paving these days? Or do they just want you to not waste fresh water by keeping grass green in the summer?
There are pretty simple ways to keep rain barrels from being mosquito nurseries.
The problem is the government using this and other environmental issues as a way to insert itself into every aspect of people’s lives.
How do they come up with an appropriate dollar figure for each square foot of paved surface? Which contributors will receive exemptions?
Will the government take into account conditions on each piece of property—and what size bureaucracy would that entail? If they don’t, then the purpose is not to reduce floodwater but simply to raise revenue. If they do, then the system will be rife with abuse.
“If they don’t, then the purpose is not to reduce floodwater but simply to raise revenue. If they do, then the system will be rife with abuse.”
And they haven’t, they are, and it is!
A lot of the problem is and can be a localized issue. California has the type of landscape, for the most part, that consistes of high, soft soil hills that if not grass covered, will slide after rainstorms. And slide they do, in a big way. CA would have to pave half the state to overcome the effects of rain on their land. It also has to be taken into consideration that the rains there follow closely on the heels of the Santa Annas-hot dry winds that dry out everything and then come the dryland grass fires, which make the land even more susceptible to rainy season slippage.
In Nevada we have a different situation. It almost never rains here, and the surface soil is as hard as pavement. After a gully washer, the water floods the area in a major way and this makes the rain barrel scenario a totally worthless idea. We do have a vast network of flood channels and drainage basins, which help to some degree, yet are not a be all-end all.
Someone has to pay for the stormwater runoff system. I’m OK with that being turned into more of a user fee. This will allow people managing money for a large shopping center, for instance, to say “Hey, if we spend the extra money to make some of this area soak up rainwater like soil is supposed to then we will pay less money to the county and it will pay for itself in 3 years”. Remember — recharging your subsurface water table is a good thing.
Since you failed to address any of my concerns, I’m done.