Blog: Water Quality Fees Are Awash With Ideas that are All Wet

Perhaps your appetite for fees was just whetted by a county fire district fee in a hidden envelop, so now you can be saturated with this proposed Water Quality Fee being proposed in a recent LA County mailer. 

The mailer claims that water run off caused by rain flows into sewers and elsewhere causing pollution and a threat to the environment that the county will wash away with the millions collected by this fee. This claim is hog wash in the West Valley, given that any significant pollution comes by way of the Rocketdyne Cleanup in West Hills/Chatsworth and the EPA is funding this clean up with federal dollars. 

Run off water in places like Chatsworth and Calabasas inures to local wildlife habitats and water shed growth, preventing mudslides and supplanting water tables which have been around since prehistoric days when most of the area was under water. 

Now the county wants to put property owners further 'under water' by charging for water run off. Many in our area do not have sewers and the run off does not flow beyond local hills. The point here is the county is searching for money due to lost tax revenues and the solution is pollution and water quality. 

The time has come to stop letting the county and our elected officials raise revenues by creating fees with no justification. Perhaps a Norquist like promise not to create any more fees should be required from all county supervisors to allow homeowners some room to enjoy being owners. County officials already want to hit those who live within a few miles of the mountains to pay fire district fees, if property taxes weren't enough to fund fire prevention and control. 

What's next, an air quality fee based on the number of vehicles that pass by your home? Perhaps a law enforcement fee if your neighborhood happens to have a higher crime rate than another? Maybe a fee for using your fireplace during the winter in lieu of clean burning gas or propane? How is an earth subsidence fee caused by the diotamaceous earth expansion and contraction in Calabasas?

Government is making home ownership a task instead of being part of the American Dream. The better idea is back off fees and to cut non-essential county services or subcontract these services to private vendors.