A January 14 Gazette.net article discusses a proposed local stormwater utility fee bill for the 2011 Session and a new federal law that will subject United States government properties to local stormwater utility fees.  The proposed State bill would require local governments to enact a stormwater utility fee and use the collected revenues for stormwater retrofits and stream restoration projects.  Variants of the bill have been introduced by Senator Jamie Raskin and Delegate Tom Hucker in the two previous Sessions:  SB 686/HB 999 of…

According to a January 12 MarylandReporter.com article, House Environmental Matters Committee Chair Maggie McIntosh announced that she was willing to sponsor legislation that would double the annual Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fee (commonly referred to as the "flush tax") from $30 to $60 per household "if no one else will do it."  Most of the fee goes towards upgrading selected wastewater treatment plants to enhanced nitrogen removal (ENR) capability, which reduces the amount of nitrogen being discharged into the Chesapeake…

The ambitious and aggressive plan by the federal Environment Protection Agency to curb runoff and pollutants into the Chesapeake Bay has triggered concerns from the agricultural community, recently culminating in a lawsuit from a major farmers' organization. From the Washington Post coverage: A major farmers group filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's most aggressive effort yet to clean the polluted Chesapeake Bay watershed, saying that the costs of the…

In an opinion piece in today's Baltimore Sun, the paper calls for tough enforcement of the cleanup goals targeted by the federal EPA. But just how tough is the EPA prepared to be? The cost of these measures, particularly for such big-ticket items as new sewage treatment plants or storm water management controls to prevent run-off from fouling creeks and streams, could run into the billions of dollars. The agency already softened some of its…

A bill co-sponsored by Senator Ben Cardin and Representative Elijah Cummings ( S. 1816) and aimed at reducing nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay, died in the waning days of the 2010 Congress.  The bill had been folded into a larger bill known as America's Great Outdoors Act. According to an article from the December 27 Capital, The Chesapeake Clean Water Act would have put into law many of the bay cleanup actions already under way by the…