Taxing the rain on your water bill, Texas falls

[Johnny44]

I was laughing when I was reading a proposal in New Jersey for charging a homeowner a fee or taxing rainfall.

I thought how crazy is this...But

San Antonio is already in the forefront. We will lose Texas!

https://www.saws.org/service/rates/stormwater_fee.cfm

[locolobo]

I've been paying for storm water management for 40 yrs.! Every year Angleton Drainage District gets a cut of my property taxes. And does little to deserve it if you ask me.

[Jerry H]

My money grabbing city has been charging a storm water fee for a couple of years.

[Johnny44]

And you guys put up with it?

When it affects me I’ll either move or change my oil over the storm drain

I guess I truely am Johnny come lately

[DRT]

No you just seem clueless.
Run off from creating more hard surfaces cause the need to effectively channel away that runoff to prevent property damage and threatening lives. It costs money to engineer and develop those systems. Perfectly rational.

Gary

[dustoffer]

Old not news.

[Bullseye07]

DRT is right. The water has to go somewhere. Unless you collect every drop of water that falls on your property....

[Johnny44]

BULLCRAP and Jonestown Koolaid!

Even without man made “hard” surfaces, VERY LITTLE of the rainfall, especially a hard rainfall permeates the soil, MOST is runoff.

The darn street is the largest of these barriers anyway.

Why should people have to pay for God making it rain?

[Humper]

No you just seem clueless.
Run off from creating more hard surfaces cause the need to effectively channel away that runoff to prevent property damage and threatening lives. It costs money to engineer and develop those systems. Perfectly rational.

Gary

And to maintain them...

X2 on the OP seeming to be clueless.

[Johnny44]

Clueless and taxless I am. I’m exempt from such things

[Mike]

No you just seem clueless.
Run off from creating more hard surfaces cause the need to effectively channel away that runoff to prevent property damage and threatening lives. It costs money to engineer and develop those systems. Perfectly rational.

It does make sense when the Drainage District is brought to the table initially to approve new additions/subdivisions and allowed to create a drainage plan. However, speaking from experience, some counties do not allow them a seat at the table, they adopt plans from developers, let them build and the Drainage District must accept what comes out in the end. Commissioners want more tax base and just allow development to occur unfettered in our area. We have a drainage district with a meager budget of $5M that can barely get by maintaining their own territory, their own ditches and the cities and counties feel they should maintain all the ditches, which is not feasible.

It wasn't until January 2018 that a zero runoff mandate was put into place for our entire county, covering all new development and commercial construction.

[Bullseye07]

No one is exempt from taxes. Now you’ve erased all doubt of you being clueless.

[sailor]

Brings to mind.... An old Beatles song.....

[cehorn]

No you just seem clueless.
Run off from creating more hard surfaces cause the need to effectively channel away that runoff to prevent property damage and threatening lives. It costs money to engineer and develop those systems. Perfectly rational.

Gary

I somewhat agree and somewhat disagree lol. You are correct that the increase in impervious cover (hard surfaces) has effects and can be serious. However, I don't see developers eating this cost up front so an additional tax can be considering being "double dipped".

Let's take a subdivision for example. A developer buys the land and pays engineers to do "the plans" including drainage to get water away from the houses (ditches, street drainage, etc.), drainage to detain water so minimal to no increase in flow leaving development vs what is there now (has to pay fees and obtain permits) and drainage to clean water (depends on area, if over aquifer, etc. and again permits and fees). All of this is factored into the price of lot, house, etc. that the consumer buys. So in theory all of what you mentioned should already be paid for in the upfront cost of buying the house.

With that said, this doesn't consider maintenance when the developed streets are turned over to the city, etc. So from that standpoint the fee cold be justified. And doing a quick look at the SAWS fees the look to be less than $5 for residential so not worth worrying about.

[stinkbelly]

We pay for rainwater run off even though there are no drains or anything in the area. I own 22 acres in the city limits. They should be paying me for the amount of rain water my land absorbs.