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The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority will charge a $20 processing fee if a lien is filed due to nonpayment of the stormwater fee, the authority board recently decided.
Property owners also would have to reimburse the authority for a $37.25 filing fee that must be paid to Luzerne County to initiate a lien, the authority said.
Both the processing and filing fees would be added to delinquent stormwater fee that must be paid to remove a lien, the authority said.
No liens have been filed to date, but authority representatives said they expect to initiate them soon.
The authority mailed delinquency notification letters to the owners of 1,700 residential property owners in September stating the past due amounts, with penalties and interest included, and advising them the authority may be taking legal steps to collect payment, including filing a lien.
As of Wednesday, the owners of 428 of these 1,700 properties paid the debt, or 25%, authority representatives said Wednesday.
Authority stormwater division manager Jeff Colella said the notification letters were added to the process to exhaust all efforts to obtain payment.
“We wanted property owners to have a heads up because we’d rather they pay their bill so we don’t have to resort to liens,” Colella said.
The authority plans to send letters to delinquent commercial customers within two weeks informing them they are facing liens, although that number won’t be known until closer to the mailing, representatives said.
Liens are the recourse for properties that don’t also rely on the authority for sewage services. Instead of liens, water service can be shut off for existing authority wastewater treatment customers who don’t pay their stormwater fees, officials have said, although the authority has not announced if or when it will exercise that option.
Based on a nonabsorbent impervious area, the fee applies to 31 municipalities that signed up for the authority’s regional program to comply with a federal mandate. The fee will fund street sweeping, catch basin cleaning, rain gardens, detention basin alterations and other projects that reduce sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus in the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay, officials said.
Some other stormwater updates:
• The authority has mailed approximately $110,195 in refunds to 1,200 Lehman Township stormwater fee payers under an agreement with the township. Because the township obtained a state waiver from compliance with the federal mandate, it will remain in the authority’s regional program on a limited basis for an annual municipal payment of $28,000 with no stormwater fee paid by property owners.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently issued a release stressing local communities have flexibility to decide how to fund mandate compliance, citing general funds, development fees and low-interest loans as other financing options in addition to a stormwater fee.
In response, authority Executive Director Jim Tomaine said the authority, engineering teams, municipal officials and others determined the regional plan with a stormwater fee was the most cost effective way to meet the mandate.
Authority board Chairman Sam Guesto said the EPA and federal legislators have not provided any funding assistance and left municipalities to “completely fend for themselves” in figuring out how they would comply “to avoid the pressures and threats of fines and penalties.”
• Area residents can help their chosen churches or nonprofits receive a reduction on their stormwater bills by volunteering to remove trash and debris along Spring Run in Wilkes-Barre Township on Saturday.
Under protocols set up by the authority, each hour of volunteering provides $6 off the stormwater bill for a nonprofit/church parcel, with a maximum allowable credit of 15 percent per parcel, Colella said.
The cleanup runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and volunteers can register that day or in advance through a link on the main page at www.wvsa.org or by calling 570-825-9483.
Volunteers must be 18 or older, and safety supplies will be provided, including insect spray. A registration table will be set up at an open-gated entrance on South Empire Street across from the Mayflower Crossing Apartments.
Spring Run was selected because a significant quantity of garbage was observed during authority assessments of local waterways, Colella said. Several stream and creek cleanups will be held annually, he said.