Maryland Rain Tax

[duckfoot]

Didn't know if this was already discussed here, and if so, then I apologize. I figured that most of the MD posters on here are from the western part of the state, so they don't have any interest in this state law.

I went to Anne Arundel County this past weekend to visit family and friends, pick some crabs and music, drink some beer, and tell stories.

I didn't believe it, but I guess it's true: Maryland now taxes for rain.

Runoff, that is.

Read the full bill here: http://www.nilesbarton.com/articles/new-stormwater-maintenance-fees-in-maryland

It's just gone into effect this past year, and if you thought good and decent people were mad at the President, you should hear what these hardworking watermen have to say about Governor O'Malley.

Anyway, just thought it would be a good discussion topic, since the vast majority on here are in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

 

[riverwhy]

Isn't the law supposed to help the bay and thus the "watermen"?

 

[Toofish]

PA has had the unfunded state mandate called MS-4 for a number of years (5 I think). There are no studies to say if it is helping with rain runoff in PA.
Thanks for the info about MD.
Sean

 

[JasonS]

The city of Philadelphia has been charging property owners with large foot prints for years for excessive rain run off from their properties. These fees can end up in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. I am very familiar with this as I have a client who specializes in runoff retention systems and they primarily work in Philadelphia.

 

[sarce]

MD and PA have some of the strictest stormwater regulations in the country. When I was looking for a job a few months ago, I interviewed with a few companies in MD. All of them told me the stormwater management part of any construction project takes at least 4-6 months of design and redesign before the gov't finally approves it. Meanwhile, southern states such as NC have very little regulation and the people there have not even heard of some of the practices that have been common in MD & PA for a decade.

 

[duckfoot]

To quote one of my good friends:

"It's okay if you're an immigrant, but God help you if you're poor in this country."

To put it in relative terms, Maryland's property taxes have gone up nearly double in the last 15 years.

 

[albud1962]

Md and Va have had strict storm water management regulations since the 80's. PA came to the game late and enacted regulations with out understanding how the implementation would be handled by the different municipalities. The result has been a hodgepodge of rules that don't make sense like infiltration in karst regions or infiltration where the bedrock is inches from the surface. The public utility aspect of storm water allows municipalities to maintain facilities which would otherwise deteriorate if maintained by private property owners. West Virginia also manages storm water as public utility because of their combined sanitary sewer system since increases in impervious areas (parking lots) cause big problems at treatment plants. One can only wonder if the fate of Trindle Spring Run would have been different if Silver Spring Township would have had a storm water tax. This might have lead to a more sensible development of the area near the stream by drastically reducing the size of the parking lots in order to have lower taxes.