Marylander's agree on two things: We love the Chesapeake Bay and we hate taxes.
On the bay, there is irrefutable evidence that runoff from human development is a primary source of pollution. We need to clean up the water running into the Chesapeake Bay as a first step to saving it ("Backtracking on the Bay," Jan. 22).
On taxes, we first try to have them eliminated but failing that, we try to avoid the behavior that triggers them.
That is why Gov. Larry Hogan's action to eliminate the "rain tax" is so sad. His actions do not eliminate the need to reduce runoff, nor do they reduce the cost of cleaning up the bay; instead they simply hide those costs inside our general tax burden. The direct line between the dirty water flowing into the Chesapeake Bay and the sources of that dirty water is eliminated. By de-coupling the cost of run-off from the source of that run-off, he defuses the logic of clustering growth around public transportation hubs and areas with existing utilities and encourages sprawl and ecologically unsound development.
I'm afraid that the "rain tax" was doomed as soon as its nickname was coined and hope our legislators will re-introduce this policy with some new, catchy moniker. Instead of "taxing the rain," the new law should evoke images of paying for dead crabs or preventing closed beaches.
A new law should very specifically equate the cost of a square foot of non-permeable surface to the cost of cleaning a cubic foot of toxic runoff. If the law is stiff enough and free market theories are correct, the great "invisible hand" will lead developers to adopt environmentally responsible practices to avoid those costs. Better planning and use of permeable surfaces will become economically logical and we will begin the long, long journey toward restoring the Chesapeake Bay to health.
If nothing else, this experiment will tell us which is the stronger emotion — hate of taxes or love of the bay. Personally, I'll vote for the Chesapeake, and presented properly, I'm betting most Marylanders would agree. Just don't call it a tax.
Mac Nachlas, Baltimore