A few days ago I posted about a Star-Ledger article “Towns must rethink flood prevention, experts say.”((I have since found the same article behind NJ.com’s paywall under the title: “N.J. wasn’t built to handle the storms it’s now facing. How can it protect itself?“)) That post suggested that the people mentioned in the article were experts because they supported the editorial point that the author wished to make, which seemed to be in support of local stormwater1 “utilities,” which would allow local government to tax (by another name) existing development. In this post I want to address the merits of that scheme.
Here is the article’s explanation of stormwater utilities:
Put simply, a stormwater utility would be able to collect money from properties in town based on the amount of runoff they contribute to fund stormwater improvement projects.
It almost sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?((One wonders if the owner of a large, mostly pervious property that absorbs more precipitation than falls on it would be paid for the property’s contribution to flood control.))
This is New Jersey and here is the problem that immediately comes to mind: home rule. We have 565 municipalities, none of which is willing to cede local control or have locally-generated revenues spent elsewhere (or at least by someone else). If there are to be stormwater utilities, each municipality will want its own, and most of which will use a significant portion of the revenue to pay professionals (lawyers and engineers) and a hire a few friends for high paying positions.
The Star-Ledger article itself refers to a related problem. The downstream town can do everything right, but if the upstream communities do nothing, well, water flows down hill as they say. Any effective solution cannot be hostage to municipal parochialism. Even though there may be some understanding that upstream improvements benefit everyone downstream, there are likely multiple upstream sources so downstream’s problems will not all be solved by any one project. It’s going to be hard to send locally generated fees far away when flooding will still occur.
Jay Bohn
September 16, 2021
- “Stormwater” is precipitation (rain or snow melt) that is not absorbed into the ground where it falls but runs off, usually ultimately to rivers and streams. A significant factor in preventing the local infiltration of stormwater is whether the ground is “pervious” (e.g., grass) or “impervious” (roofs and pavement). [↩]