Amidst a range of discussions about water quality, land use, and watershed planning — an old idea has received a new beginning in the General Assembly. Crossfiled bills SB 614 and HB 987 would require each county to levy a fee to support county-driven stormwater management and remediation efforts.

Under current law, counties are authorized to employ such a fee, but at their option. Currently only two county governments, plus several municipal governments, use such a fee structure.

Each county’s stormwater remediation fee would be required to be set as follows (from page 4 of the bill):

(I) IS THE SAME FOR ALL RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY OWNERS WITHIN THE COUNTY OR MUNICIPALITY;
(II) VARIES BASED ON THE TYPE OF RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY, INCLUDING SINGLE–FAMILY OR MULTIPLE–OCCUPANCY PROPERTIES; OR
(III) IS GRADUATED, BASED ON THE AMOUNT OF 6 IMPERVIOUS SURFACE ON EACH RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY.

Read the full text of SB 614 here.

The MACo Legislative Committee will have the bills for consideration at its February 22 meeting. For a full list of bills pending review by the Legislative Committee, visit the MACo Legislative Tracking Database.