Rain Tax?

The Baron · 06-19-07, 08:41 PM

I'm curius.

Is anybody else around the country getting screwed by a "rain tax"?

Just as I do every month, I received my water bill from my county's Water Authority. However, this bill was a bit unusual. Assessed to my normal usage fees was a “Storm Water Charge”.

For some reason the Water Authority has begun to charge me for…rain. And while I could be wrong, I don’t believe it rained last month.

The charge was only for $3.75. And while I don’t want to seem petty, I’m frankly sick-and-tired of being nickel-and-dimed for every little thing. And since I’ve never had to pay for rain before, it seems unreasonable that I should have to pay for it now.

I also figured out that if I lived to be as old as my father was when he passed away this was going to end up costing me over $1,600 and that’s only if they never raise the “rain tax”!

So the next morning I called the Water Authority’s customer service line and was placed on hold for about 20 minutes. Since this seemed unreasonable to me I hung-up and called the operator back at the Water Authority and asked to speak with whoever is in charge over there. The operator told me that Mike T. was in charge and she put me through to him. Mike told me that the Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance and if I had any questions I could call them.

So I did.

There I was told that the federal government passed “a law” and to comply with this “law” the county commissioners passed an ordinance last December at the request of the Water Authority.

Okay. This made no sense but I was told by the lady at the Commissioners office that if I had any questions I could call the federal government.

So I did.

I called the federal EPA offices and I spoke with a very nice lady who said, in fact, that the federal government did pass a clean water act last year requiring that the states deal with the rain water that flows into its sewers and to treat that water for any pollutants, animal waste, etc. that may be contaminating the water.

I explained to her that the state has always been doing this.

She said that was correct but that the act just made it “official” and that “nothing had changed”.

She also told me I could get more of the information I was looking for from my state's EPA office and told me to call them.

So I did.

There I spoke with a gentleman about this issue and asked him to explain to me why I was being charged for rain as, according to the federal EPA office, nothing had changed. After some time he finally admitted that this was “just another way of dipping into our pockets”.

I sh-- you not!

He seemed eager to get me off the phone and said if I was interested in knowing how these “fees” were assessed, I could call a number he gave me for another office at the state EPA offices and ask them.

So I did.

There I spoke with a lady named Lisa P. and asked her how these fees were assessed and the requirements for any exceptions, etc.

By now, I not even trying to be nice and this lady seemed quite upset and said that “you don’t want to talk to me! We don’t do any of that here! We just issue the MS-4 permits to the Water Authority! You want to call Mike T. at the Water Authority!”

So I did.

Now Mikey is the guy I started with and I’m good and wound-up by the time Mike answers the phone.

Funny. Mike didn’t seem real happy to hear back from me.

I tell Mike that I had learned that last December his predecessor, Wade B., had put together a presentation for the Board of Commissioners asking for the money and that they had approved it. Other than that, nothing has changed.

So this time he tells me that while “nothing has changed” except that the county used to pay to have the rain-water treated but with the passage of the federal clean water act it was now the responsibility of the Water Authority to treat the water effective July 1st. To offset the costs, the Water Authority is having to pass that cost on to all of us. He also told me that this was going to be taking place all over the state with each areas respective water authority agency.

Okay. If this is true then everyone’s state taxes should be reduced some small amount. After all, this is an expense that the state no longer has to pay so I should no longer have to fund this endeavor with my tax money, right?

Also, if the Water Authority has to begin treating rain water at their (my) cost beginning July 1st, why are they charging me for that water treatment beginning with my April water bill?

It seems that the more I was learning the less sense any of this was making and since Mike told me that if I had any questions regarding how my taxes would be affected I could call the Clayton County Tax Commissioner, Terry L.

So I did.

Or at least I tried to. That guy must be real busy ‘cause I never did get a hold of him and he never returned any of my calls. I did, however, speak to Jim G. who turned out to be a really great guy and I ended up talking with him for a while. I asked him if my taxes would be going down? And if not, where is the money going? He explained to me that they only collect taxes and don’t distribute them. But for the particular questions I was asking he said I would need to call the Board of Commissioners, specifically Wole R. and the Mayor of my town, Joe M.

So I did.

Except I didn’t hear back from Wole.

So I’m thinking that come election time ol’ Wole doesn’t need to be my commissioner anymore.

Anyway, I did talk to Joe M. and learned that the estimated value of the collections of this rain tax was $9,000,000. I also learned that there would be no tax reduction from my property taxes to offset this new rain tax.

Another question Mayor Joe was able to answer for me was that my county “owns” the Water Authority (vs. some private entity). I was curious about this because if the Water Authority was privately owned then they may well have a legitimate right to charge an additional fee for water. But since it is already owned and by my county and operated by my tax dollars and water fees then this new charge really is nothing more than a rain tax.

Joe also told me that I needed to call Wayne P. of the Transportation and Development Department and ask him what this $9,000,000 would be used for.

So I did.

So after three days of trying to figure out why I am being charged a rain tax, here is what I learned from Mr. P…

The clean water act passed by the federal government requires the states to test the waters in rivers, lakes, creeks, etc. to ensure that they are free from (already) illegal contaminants for which there are already laws in place to protect against so that nobody drops dead from the water that comes out of their sinks. And since there is currently no money allocated to provide for this testing, Clayton County needs $9,000,000 to go and do just that.

Now I could actually understand why this testing would be necessary if people were actually dropping dead left-and-right because of the water they were drinking in their homes but until Mr. P. mentioned it I’ve never even heard of anything this fundamentally stupid!

This was also completely contrary to what Mike T. of Water Authority told me when he said that “nothing has changed”.

I beginning to think that nobody knows why we now have a rain tax.

And since we’re in a drought, I wonder if I can get a tax credit?

Monk-Eye · 06-20-07, 09:44 AM

"Illegals In The Water"

I thought storm water was not "treated" and is dumped into the natural water system. It would be impossible to contain the volume.

All waste water is treated; pouring ethylene glycol (antifreeze), etc. down the sink or toilet is better than pouring it onto the ground and ultimately into the water table.

Quote:

Clean Water Act
While the technology-based standards have been largely successful, because they apply to specific sources and are enforceable, the health and water quality-based standards have been much less so. As of 2007, approximately half of the rivers, lakes, and bays under EPA oversight were not safe enough for fishing and swimming.[3] The most important remaining cause of these problems (typically, diffuse runoff from farms, streets, and yards) is known as non-point source pollution, which was not addressed in the original Clean Water Act.

To assist municipalities in creating wastewater treatment plants that were capable of meeting these standards, the CWA established a system to provide federal financial assistance, first in the form of construction grants, which were modified several times and later replaced by the State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund in 1987. The Clean Water Act and its regulations also establish pretreatment requirements for industrial users contributing wastes to Publicly Owned Treatment Works.

I saw no new legislation, perhaps ask the EPA for specifics.

My first suspicion is that someone realized they could increase their net wealth by creating another tax collecting bureaucratic department by simply exercising their authority to legally steal. If there was civil accountability directly upon the idiots that create spurious frivolous projects insted of calling it government, that form of governing body would not be willing to act with disregard.