{"id":9926,"date":"2018-03-19T07:00:16","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9926"},"modified":"2018-03-18T21:37:01","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T01:37:01","slug":"leggett-plans-to-privatize-stormwater-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9926","title":{"rendered":"Leggett Plans to Privatize Stormwater Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a memo sent to the County Council last week, County Executive Ike Leggett said he intends to pursue a public-private partnership (P3) to administer the county\u2019s stormwater management program.\u00a0 That decision is particularly interesting given the facts that the State of Maryland has alleged that the county committed numerous violations of its stormwater permit and the county agreed to a consent decree in January.<\/p>\n

The potential P3 and the consent decree relate to the county\u2019s responsibilities under its Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit<\/a>, which is a state and federal mandate on large jurisdictions to undertake stormwater projects designed to improve the Chesapeake Bay.\u00a0 Under the latest permit issued by the state for the period of 2010 through 2015, the county is responsible for assessing sources of pollutants in runoff, identifying best management practices in stormwater control, establishing and inspecting management systems to control runoff and restoring twenty percent of its impervious surface area that has not already been managed.\u00a0 The principal source of the county\u2019s funding for stormwater activities is its Water Quality Protection Charge<\/a>, established in 2002, which is levied on property tax bills.\u00a0 The charge, which is not subject to the county\u2019s charter limit on property taxes, has increased by more than 1100% over the last fifteen years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While the charge is intended to be used for stormwater projects, it is in fact used for a lot more than that.\u00a0 In FY18 (estimated)<\/a>, more money from the Water Quality Protection Fund went to the operating budget ($26.8 million) and a transfer to the rest of the general fund ($1.6 million) than to the capital budget ($5.4 million) and debt service on capital projects ($6.1 million).\u00a0 And so most of the proceeds from the charge do not actually go directly into physical stormwater capital projects.<\/p>\n

During the 2010-2015 permit period, a series of<\/a> lawsuits<\/a> were brought against the MS4 permits issued to several counties, including Montgomery.\u00a0 The end result in Montgomery\u2019s case was a consent decree<\/a> agreed to by the county and the state in January.\u00a0 (The state\u2019s website<\/a> does not list any other county as having a consent decree.)\u00a0 According to the consent decree, the Maryland Department of the Environment alleged numerous violations of the MS4 permit by the county, including running up deficits of unrestored impervious land of 2,004 acres in FY15 and 1,860.5 acres in FY16 as well as many reporting failures.\u00a0 The consent decree requires the county to build a number of supplemental environmental projects, which are not listed in the decree itself, by 12\/31\/20.<\/p>\n

Here is a question: with the water quality protection charge almost tripling between 2010 and 2015, why was the county deficient in restoring thousands of acres as it was supposed to do under its stormwater permit?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also of note is that the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which manages the county\u2019s stormwater activities, is currently led by an Acting Director.\u00a0 The previous Director served for less than two years and left for \u201cprofessional and personal reasons.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps in connection with all of the above, County Executive Ike Leggett told the County Council in a memo last week the following: \u201cThe department [of Environmental Protection] also intends to pursue a public-private partnership contracting vehicle for the anticipated new Permit \u2013 a mechanism that has provided significant cost efficiencies in other jurisdictions such as Prince George’s County.\u201d\u00a0 The memo is 99 pages long, but we reprint pages one and two, which contain the reference to the P3, below.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This raises a number of questions.\u00a0 What will the scope of the P3 be?\u00a0 Will the P3 be subject to open bidding or will it be a sole-source contract? \u00a0How will the concessionaire be compensated?\u00a0 How will the county oversee the concessionaire\u2019s operations?\u00a0 To the extent that they are affected by the P3, what recourse will property owners have in dealing with the concessionaire\u2019s decisions?\u00a0 (This is not an academic question given the activities of the Purple Line\u2019s P3 concessionaire<\/a>.)\u00a0 Since the county faces legal liability to the state in connection with the consent decree, is it wise to vest compliance in a private entity?\u00a0 Would that entity agree to indemnify the county if it fails to achieve the mandates in the consent decree?\u00a0 As for the \u201csignificant cost efficiencies\u201d claimed in Prince George\u2019s County, their P3 is only three years old and was described as the first of its kind when it was signed<\/a>.\u00a0 Does that P3 have enough of a track record to make it a model for MoCo?<\/p>\n

Another question.\u00a0 Environmental regulation is a core function of government.\u00a0 Selling alcohol is not.\u00a0 How on Earth does it make sense that a county would socialize alcohol sales and privatize environmental protection?<\/p>\n

Finally, here is the biggest question of all: why now?\u00a0 The current County Executive has less than nine months left in his time in office.\u00a0 A P3 is a major structural change to the county\u2019s operations and the one in Prince George\u2019s has a thirty-year duration.\u00a0 Is this an issue for the next Executive and council to decide?\u00a0 Or should they and their successors be bound by an administration with only a short time left in office?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for a public discussion of the county\u2019s stormwater performance issues and the appropriateness of a P3.\u00a0 We ask the County Council to raise it during the discussions of Leggett\u2019s last budget in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. In a memo sent to the County Council last week, County Executive Ike Leggett said he intends to pursue a public-private partnership (P3) to administer the county\u2019s stormwater management program.\u00a0 That decision is particularly interesting given the facts that the State of Maryland has alleged that the county committed numerous violations of … Continue reading Leggett Plans to Privatize Stormwater Management<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,47,167],"tags":[1545,1481,1549],"class_list":["post-9926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-environment","category-ike-leggett","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-environment","tag-ike-leggett"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2A6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9926"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9931,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926\/revisions\/9931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}