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Opponents of a new stormwater fee are selling “End the rain tax!” signs to raise both public awareness and funds for a proposed legal challenge.
The signs, which cost $10 each, will show area officials how many property owners are displeased with the new fee, said Lehman Township resident Marian DeAngelis.
“Let’s start making this visible. We’re challenging residents to buy the signs and put them out in their yards,” she said. “This is a great visual aid to show we’re not going away.”
DeAngelis said she purchased 10 signs for her yard and to provide to others.
Net proceeds from the signs will be deposited with other donations in a legal account to fund planned litigation, she said.
Patrick Martin, owner of Hi Def Vape in Wilkes-Barre Township, said he bought 100 signs and will sell them for $10 each so that additional $1,000 can be donated to the legal fund.
As of May 7, anti-fee organizers had raised at least a quarter of the $45,000 needed to start the initial litigation phase. Thousands of dollars in donations have been added to the pot since then, DeAngelis said Tuesday.
If sufficient funds are raised, Attorney Margaret M. Witherup, a Bloomsburg native with the Maryland law firm Gordon Feinblatt Inc., would handle the suit, which would cost an estimated $144,000 to the reach the stage of a court decision, organizers have said.
Litigation organizers said their goal would be elimination or a significant reduction of the stormwater fee.
The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority imposed the fee to fund projects that bring participating municipalities in compliance with a federal pollution mandate so they won’t face fines. Thirty-two municipalities signed up for the regional program, although Lehman Township has obtained a mandate waiver from the state and is trying to withdraw.
Municipal officials supporting the regional plan have argued their property owners would pay more through real estate taxes if they attempt to comply with the mandate on their own.
Checks to order signs should be payable to “noraintax.org,” which is the group’s new website, DeAngelis said. The mailing address: P.O. Box 82, Lehman PA, 18627.
Organizers also are planning to sell T-shirts and hold a “no rain tax rally,” although details are still in the works, DeAngelis said.
“It may seem quiet, but there are a lot of things going on,” DeAngelis said. “We’re just not quitting.”
Authority officials have said they also must proceed with collecting the fee and planning and completing pollution reduction projects because they made a commitment to participating municipalities and were denied a compliance extension. The mandate requires less sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus washed into the Susquehanna River, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay, over the next five years.
At its recent public expo, the authority handed out a brochure of frequently asked fee questions that included this one: “Why should I pay for rain falling on my property?”
Its response said rain collects pollutants as it falls on nonabsorbent impervious surfaces.
“It’s not so much the rain itself, but the pollutants it carries are harmful to our environment,” the brochure said, citing dirt, silt, leaves, yard clippings, fertilizers, pesticides, pet waste, oil, fuel and phosphates from soap used in car or pet washing.