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Drip,
Drip, Drip
The
never-ending budget squeeze is water torture for Virginia's
environment. There's not enough money to
evaluate pollution permits, much less clean up the
Chesapeake Bay.
On
the same day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
Virginia could draw water from the Potomac River
for localities without seeking permission from
Maryland, Virginia lawmakers in Richmond again
pondered the news that the Commonwealth’s
Department of Environment Quality (DEQ) cannot
meet its permitting responsibilities in 2004 and
beyond without new money. And before the day was
over, the earth shook.
“Is this an earthquake?” participants in a
meeting along
South
12th Street
in Richmond
asked aloud as they moved quickly toward the
vibrating windows to take a look (in total
violation of earthquake guidelines to remove
oneself from the vicinity of vibrating windows).
“It was the state budget,” one wag suggested
later, “with it’s epicenter in the bare
cupboard of Commonwealth revenue accounts.”
Shaking things up would be the prime
characteristic of the day.
The
Supreme Court decision, for a start, relied
heavily on an 1877 arbitrator’s decision
allowing Virginia
to take water
from the
Potomac
without getting permits from
Maryland.
That state’s attorney general had asked the high
court to acknowledge that Maryland
owned the
Potomac
River
under a 1632 charter from King Charles I (which
must have been great news to native Americans
drinking, fishing and paddling there at the time).
To
Maryland’s
disappointment, Virginia
need not play Tantalus.
Move over to another of the most basic of
government services -- water pollution discharge
permits covering private facilities and municipal
waste water plants and solid waste permits for
local governments and transporters. The
Commonwealth’s DEQ issues the permits and
monitors compliance. Options put forward by the
staff of the Senate Finance Committee to raise
permit fees or provide more general fund dollars
to cover budget shortfalls weren’t surprising.
Unexpected, however, was a third option from the
staff: Return the delegation of authority for
permitting to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s regional office in
Philadelphia.
Even a straw man argument can raise eyebrows.
Exactly do would the economics of basic
environmental permit fees work? Current fee
revenues cover the costs of permitting, right? Not
since lawmakers have tried to stretch the fee to
cover more than the cost of simple paperwork.
Revenue shortfalls in the general fund back in
2001 required the General Assembly in 2002 to task
DEQ with tripling
permit fees “temporarily” -- this is your
chance to whip out your magic marker and write 300
percent on the flip-chart in front of a large
group -- and to order use of environmental
emergency response funds, supposedly to be used
for environmental emergencies, not revenue
shortfalls, and use of federal funds anticipated,
but not yet in hand. The sunset for this cutting,
pasting and anticipating occurs in 2004, which
legislative staff calculated, will leave an $8
million shortfall in support of 245 full-time
equivalent positions at DEQ dedicated to
permitting, inspecting, monitoring, etc.
The lawmakers have three options to
evaluate: Implement a permanent fee structure with
many fees higher than the current structure;
provide $8 million in general fund support; or
return the delegation of authority to the EPA.
General fund money requires tax money, of course,
from taxpayers. Fees, on the other hand, are paid
by local governments (which use tax money, too,
but state government pretends it involves some
other taxpayer) and by private facilities or
transporters, who pass along costs to customers
(AKA taxpayers). Letting the U.S. EPA do the job
would mean the federal government would assume the
burden (with money from taxpayers) or perhaps even
charge the Commonwealth for the service (which
would mean taxpayer and customer AKA taxpayer
monies). At least, unlike the state, the federal
government can run a deficit and borrow money it
needs to provide the service (and on which
taxpayers pay both principal and interest), right
while it continues to cut taxes!?
At
almost the same moment that legislative
discussions were underway in Richmond, governors
Mark R. Warner and Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. of
Maryland were announcing at George Mason
University -- before an audience that included new
EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt, former
Governor of Utah -- that they needed the federal
government to pull together $19 billion for
cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay. The Bay is a
national, not just a multi-state treasure, the
governors intoned, which really means that
individual states have no intention of meeting
their self-proclaimed responsibilities still
unfulfilled after 20 years. One wonders if Gov.
Ehrlich enjoyed a cool drink of his
Potomac
River
water drawn and treated by the Fairfax County
Water Authority and whether EPA Administrator
Leavitt enjoyed his introduction to the game of
Bay, paper, scissors.
Gov.
Warner, to his credit, also announced in Fairfax
that he will earmark $7.7 million in his budget
December 17 to replenish Virginia’s
water quality improvement fund and will take
action to set technologically based limits for
nitrogen and phosphorous discharges into the Bay
through new sewage treatment regulations. The
greatest failure of 2003, according to the
116,000-member Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is the
lack of such new measures to control nitrogen
pollution from agriculture and sewage treatment.
Regional state legislators meeting the week before
as the Chesapeake Bay Commission suggested that
increasing sewage charges on 13 million people in
the Bay area by a nickel a day for the next 20
years could raise the $2.7 billion to $4.4 billion
needed to improve sewage treatment throughout the
watershed.
Meanwhile,
the Foundation notes the comings and goings on the
Bay in December. Adult eagles repair their nests
and mate. Blue crabs hibernate in the mud. Females
hibernate at the mouth of the Bay, while the males
stay in local areas. Small animals begin to show
their heavy winter coats. Waterfowl are less in
evidence. Some remain in the region all winter
while others migrate south. Golden eagles are
occasionally seen during this month. Winterberry
bushes, found in the forested wetlands and tidal
swamps, produce bright red fruit.
That’s
a Happy Holidays picture worth preserving for
anyone (taxpayer) willing to take a look.
--
December
15, 2003
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