Up to $500 for Port Angeles Residents Who Disconnect Their Downspouts
The City has implemented a "Green Infrastructure Rebate Program" to cut down on the water runoff carrying pollutants into the sewage system and the harbor. Port Angeles residents could get up to $500 if they disconnect their downspout and build a rain garden.
The amount of the rebate depends on how much remodeling a homeowner is willing to do. As of right now, a rain garden will bring in the largest rebate. For more information go to the city's website or call their hot line at 417-4380.
The amount of the rebate depends on how much remodeling a homeowner is willing to do. As of right now, a rain garden will bring in the largest rebate. For more information go to the city's website or call their hot line at 417-4380.
posted by Tom Harper at 5:15 PM
10 Comments:
If the city removes that channel 7 video from their website, I will return.
I sure miss the neighborhood watch chat, though! LOL
That's a good one, huh? A neighborhood watch, in Port Angeles?
"My neighbor is mooning me! And I hear the sound of compressed air! I believe his farts are deadly!"...SWAT team arrives in minutes. Man arrested. Fart attack diverted...for now.
"My neighbor is going to bull doze my house!"
"Did you do somthun' to provoke him, maam?" ....DUUUR.
Hum, the opinions and views of others should be interesting.
So, the City spends something like $50 million of taxpayers money on the most expensive project in the City's history to build a tank-o-crap on the former Rayonier mill site, and now wants to use taxpayers' money to get people to disconnect from that same system?
You know how it is. You design a system to handle whatever the amount needs to be dealt with, and move on. But here in Port Angeles, before the project is even completed, the City now wants to take even more tax money to entice residents to disconnect their houses downspouts from the sewer system that was just upgraded to handle that source?!
Gotta look "green", somehow.
Maybe in the future the 'rain gardens' will be seen as wetlands and you won't be able to do anything else with the area.
So - will people who disconnect their downspouts also get a reduction in their sewer bills going forward? They should.
Unless we fix the actual problem of having a COMBINED SEWER we're going to keep paying for band-aid solutions like the massive tank of shit on the waterfront.
The application form for this program is sufficiently intimidating that I doubt many people will follow through with it. Even if the city was offering to do it for you for free most people wouldn't give enough of a shit to participate.
So...Max Mania was right all along. It just took the city years to realize it. Years and, oh, $50 million dollars committed to a numbskull public works project.
Sigh...
Port Angeles really should dump the "Authentic NW" motto and go with something like: "Port Angeles - we [sic] have the wisdom to know the difference. Eventually. And then we will really be sure. And you will pay for it".
Among the many really insane aspects of this "CSO" project is that the real estate/business community didn't rise up and exercise the power they wield in this town to stop this project. Why?
According to Mayor Cherie Kidd and the business folks, the former Rayonier Mill site is the city's "crown jewel", with all that fabulous waterfront property. Maybe. But, from their perspective, as was seen with the failed "Harbor Works" fiasco, these folks see the site as highly developable, and then, presumably income generating. Jobs, taxes, etc.
But, in its' great wisdom, the City decided the highest and best use of the city's "crown jewel" was to locate a 5 million gallon tank of shit right smack dab in the middle of the site, along with 11 acres of surrounding lands for facilities, thereby destroying any real development value. Why? Because the tank, which had a replacement value of a million or two, was located there, near the existing WWTP.
Now, as can be seen in cities across the US, these types of storage tank systems for CSO projects are located underground and out of sight. Most in leadership positions are able to think ahead, chew gum, and walk at the same time.
But in Port Angeles, as is seen repeatedly, the "leadership" rarely can see beyond the immediate.
So, the once possible jobs, incomes and tax generation that could have helped the city for years into the future, are lost. The combined value of all those jobs, incomes and taxes to the city would have so far exceeded what the city thought it was "saving" in buying the already old 5 million gallon tank (on which many thousands more are being spent to fix up, already).
Instead of taking advantage of an opportunity to move the city forward, the city destroyed that opportunity, and then, to add insult to injury, made the residents foot the $50 million bill.
Waste upon waste, and more waste.
City officials are famous for ginning up some excuse to spend taxpayer or ratepayer money to put a little cash in city coffers, or to gain favor with a chosen few cronies or wanna-be cronies. The city's "disconnect the downspouts for cash" project is not about any belief in the long term value of this approach; it is about trying to appear "green" while gleaning fees for administering a pass-through grant of the money provided by Ecology or the EPA.
The challenge for vigilant citizens is to try to figure out the city's hidden agenda. Examples: Why did the public works department push so hard for the ridiculous pedestrian bridge to nowhere at Tumwater Street & Marine Drive? What was the real motivation behind HarborWorks? Why is the city really making such a big deal about "threats" to the Ranney collector? To push money into the hands of favored consultants? To get Rayonier off the hook for pollution liability? Te extort more money from the National Park Service as "mitigation" for the removal of the Elwha Dams?
Post a Comment
<< Home