From Harford County government:
Harford County government is pleased to announce a new online tool to promote awareness of the connection between local watersheds, the health of local streams, and the Chesapeake Bay. Created by the Department of Public Works’ Watershed Protection & Restoration Office, the “Harford County Watershed Explorer” is an online mapping application allowing users to identify the watershed for any location in Harford County. Citizens can explore the map by pointing and clicking to get watershed information anywhere in the county, or they can enter an address to identify the watershed for a specific location.
“Harford County citizens play an important role in protecting the health of our local streams,” said County Executive Barry Glassman. “By providing information about local watersheds, we hope to encourage good stewardship of these precious natural resources.”
Each time it rains, everything on the ground becomes part of the storm water runoff entering into our local streams. Some things we may leave on the ground which impact stream health include pet waste, fertilizer left on sidewalks, litter, and fluids leaked from cars. Citizens can help improve the health of local streams by planting trees, leaving lawn clippings in place, and by composting or dropping off yard waste at one of Harford County’s yard trim drop-off sites. Citizens can also recycle household hazardous waste or replace household items with eco-friendly alternatives. For more information about these options for citizens and programs for businesses in Harford County, please visit: http://www.harfordcountymd.gov/166/Environmental-Services.
More information about Harford streams and access to the Harford County Watershed Explorer is available on the county website at www.harfordcountymd.gov/harfordstreams.
General rule of thumb for stream health: if you wouldn’t want your kids or pets to drink it, don’t allow it to get into the water. Oh, and stop treating your lawn.
Trump says steams and small water ways are not important enough to worry about. They are being pulled out from under the Clean Water Act protections. Who needs them anyway. We’ll cut the EPA too…that’ll fix that.
Scary.
I agree that the small streams and waterways are important and should be worried about, however, does that mean that our government should instill an unreasonable tax on the people? The “Rain” tax, as it was referred to, was the most ridiculous tax on property owners all across Maryland. Any tax should have been imposed on those who use the contaminants and chemicals that are ruining our watersheds. The simplest solution would have been place a tax on the actual products that contain the harmful ingredients. But, leave it to our government to come up with a way to generate more revenue from the people, in an unreasonable fashion. The EPA did not care about the people’s burden and allowed the expense to be absorbed by the public through the taxation of the people by our state governments. Any unreasonable tax should be considered extortion, as it is what it is. When any agency allows the actions that are government has taken, that agency becomes unpopular and condemned. We all know that the EPA wants to do right, yet can not do right because of the criminals we have elected into office. The EPA is a good thing, that allowed a bad thing and now we will suffer from the cuts to that good thing. Our government has become incapable of doing anything right, regardless of its intentions. Therefore our government must either be reformed or abolished from what exists today……
While the rain tax was not a great way of establishing funds for waterway cleanup (which the government naturally mixes into the general fund so it never gets to where it’s needed), I cannot agree with your initial premise. What is required is a means of taxing non-permeable areas, roads, parking lots and driveways. Taxing every possible contaminant would be impossible and impractical. Just because some people careless enough to dump motor oil in the gutter, or over fertilize their lawn should not means that everyone is deemed mindless enough to do the same.
A better solution would be to tax developers on every square foot of pavement they lay down, and credit them for any pavement torn up and reclaimed. Same can be done for sewer, and to charge a tax for the designed population of each dwelling in order to pay for the increased police, fire services, and road maintenance required. Off sets can be made for redevelopment.
A policy like this would solve two problems at once. One, it would establish incentives for “smart growth”. Presently increases in police, fire and road maintenance is paid for by raising property taxes on existing residents. This incentivizes developers to pave and build everything in sight as they don’t have to pay for it. This would establish balance from the uncontrolled development we have at present, and would undoubtedly be vigorously opposed by developers.
Second, this would benefit the environment by relieving the strain uncontrolled development places on local ecosystems.
First of all, Police, Fire services and Road Maintenance are already paid for by the taxes currently levied. The “Rain” tax was pathetic. People should not be taxed for the reasons you say as these reasons are part of ordinary life that has already been incorporated into the scheme of the tax code already assumed by the population’s hefty array of taxes. The “Rain” tax is an example of taxing the gifts of god. This is “intolerable”. To tax the citizens for the rain that falls, an occurrence that no man or woman has control of, is completely unacceptable. I can not nor will I ever agree to the complete load of rubbish you just typed. All of your reasoning is completely out of the realms of reality. You wish to blame the developers for the pollutants drained into the watersheds? What possible logic could you have to do this? Next you will say the developers made it rain. I guess we will blame gravity for making the water run into the watershed. It makes more sense to tax gravity than taxing citizens for rainfall. Please change your name to “Con” instead of “Khan”, as reasoning such as yours is nothing but a con……
SoulCrusher, you failed to read much of what was typed. I am not defending the rain tax, but I do defend the premise of what it was designed to correct. Instead you would have us pay higher taxes just so developers that don’t live here can make outrageous profits. Yes developers are the heart of the problem. Living in Baltimore, I know you fail understand first hand what goes on here, nor do you have to pay the ever increasing property taxes, I can remember when many of the properties along routes 7 and 40 were dry land. Now due to unrestricted development they are swampland because the water has nowhere else to go.
This is not rocket science. You pave over permeable land, it becomes impermeable and the water has to go somewhere else. Only an idiot would argue otherwise.
No, you tax the products that have the contaminants in them and don’t make the public pay a cent. I never said raise the taxes on any property owner. That’s what you want to do. If you hit up the developers, do you think the developers will just eat it? No, that increase will be charged to the consumer that purchases that property from the developer. Your idea that the developers are the cause of your water shed contaminants is outrageous. If that is the case, simply pass an ordinance requiring more trees be planted in watershed zones. Having lived in Harford County, I’ve seen the taxes. Funny, the property I used to own had its value go down since I sold it. I sold it for $97K and now its only worth $67K. I was getting taxed for around $85K- $87K, now the property is being taxed at $60K. It seems to me the taxes and values have gone down up there. Do you have any clue of what you’re talking about? Do you even own property? If you do, you are uninformed.
Water quality has been getting better, not by a lot but the trend is in the right direction. This is all with record growth and development. The problem isn’t people it’s business and agriculture. The only logical explanation..