As a 2030 state deadline for septic upgrades approaches, upcoming county workshops offer a chance to refocus local tax dollars on long-term wastewater infrastructure.
If these workshops are about pushing for the 1/2 cent sales tax, I'm proposing the entire 1 cent tax to be collected by the county and distributed to the cities to repair and improve the INFRASTRUCTURE that is causing the all the damage to the lagoon. FIX THE PROBLEM! Directing the sales tax to the IRL is like constantly bailing out a sinking boat with a hole in it. Fix the hole in the boat to stop the boat from sinking. A little common sense will go a long way. We could finally get the funds so needed to fix the flooding, wastewater, storm water and roads. There are many environmental grants available for our beloved IRL.
Thanks Tom, how we allowed our State Representatives to force such onerous regulations on property owner's west of I-95 (in no proximity whatsoever to the IRL) in the name of the lagoon is beyond me. One could interpret this as a homeowner is required to pay the expense of a Nitrogen redux installation then as soon as Palm Bay gets a grant to run the sewer utility by your house you would pay again for a Septic to Sewer conversion. This has to be bureaucratic error. Our local leaders like to chant "Home Rule", but they've been quiet as a mouse on this one. I'd speculate that Sen Mayfield's doner base is barrier island centric, thus she has a incentive to push this. Frankly, the West side of Palm Bay has little relationship to the IRL. The Army Core came back in here a few decades ago and reversed the drainage away from the IRL. It reminds me of a while back when the Legislature passed similar requirements statewide driven by vintage homes along Wekiva Springs. People pushed back on their Legislators, and it was repealed.(I'm not sensing the push-back this time) Lest we forget the dozens of examples of Palm Bay's sewer utility dumping 100s of thousands of gallons of raw sewage into the lagoon and other places. If the goal is truly keeping sewage from the IRL, there could be logical, cost-effective ways to do it. Unfortunately, I don't observe any such strategy here.
If these workshops are about pushing for the 1/2 cent sales tax, I'm proposing the entire 1 cent tax to be collected by the county and distributed to the cities to repair and improve the INFRASTRUCTURE that is causing the all the damage to the lagoon. FIX THE PROBLEM! Directing the sales tax to the IRL is like constantly bailing out a sinking boat with a hole in it. Fix the hole in the boat to stop the boat from sinking. A little common sense will go a long way. We could finally get the funds so needed to fix the flooding, wastewater, storm water and roads. There are many environmental grants available for our beloved IRL.
Thanks Tom, how we allowed our State Representatives to force such onerous regulations on property owner's west of I-95 (in no proximity whatsoever to the IRL) in the name of the lagoon is beyond me. One could interpret this as a homeowner is required to pay the expense of a Nitrogen redux installation then as soon as Palm Bay gets a grant to run the sewer utility by your house you would pay again for a Septic to Sewer conversion. This has to be bureaucratic error. Our local leaders like to chant "Home Rule", but they've been quiet as a mouse on this one. I'd speculate that Sen Mayfield's doner base is barrier island centric, thus she has a incentive to push this. Frankly, the West side of Palm Bay has little relationship to the IRL. The Army Core came back in here a few decades ago and reversed the drainage away from the IRL. It reminds me of a while back when the Legislature passed similar requirements statewide driven by vintage homes along Wekiva Springs. People pushed back on their Legislators, and it was repealed.(I'm not sensing the push-back this time) Lest we forget the dozens of examples of Palm Bay's sewer utility dumping 100s of thousands of gallons of raw sewage into the lagoon and other places. If the goal is truly keeping sewage from the IRL, there could be logical, cost-effective ways to do it. Unfortunately, I don't observe any such strategy here.