Mudslide.

[Keith]

Who maintains your main drains Larry? The ones your house connects to?

Do you have a main drain system where you live even?

 

[Larry L.]

Who maintains your main drains Larry? The ones your house connects to?

The city does, Keith, BUT IT WAS ALREADY CHARGING FOR THAT SERVICE LOOOOOOOOOONG BEFORE THIS GOOFY 'RAINWATER RUNOFF TAX' WAS DREAMED UP AND ADDED ON.

All that tax does is just create ONE MORE TAX we're forced to pay simply because the 'all knowing' were able to dream it up...

 

[Keith]

Well yes, that's what I was getting at so you pay a tax on top of a utility bill for essentially the same thing - waste water run off returning to the drains. Do they use your actual water consumption to calculate that?

 

[Larry L.]

Do they use your actual water consumption to calculate that?

That and whatever else they can come up with to throw in there.

 

[Keith]

That and whatever else they can come up with to throw in there.

I can't understand how they can justify that. Which budget is the tax revenue raised in this way, applied against and who collects it? Is it the utility company on behalf of the City, State or Federal?

 

[Cliff Beer]

This area is in my backyard too, and I'm familiar with the spot.

There has been a lot of development in the area, and this negatively affects how water flows (or not) and drains away when there's a large amount of rainfall. The whole area was logged in the late 1800's and what grew up around there is mostly scrub trees with a few pine trees. This isn't as good as deep rooted old growth for moderating the effects of a large rainfall. In more recent times there has been a lot of residential development (hence people died in this fall) and that also negatively affects how waster flows and drains (or not) in the area.

Mud slides do occur naturally, and have done so since the start of time. But development tends to worsen the situation, in some cases dramatically. Nature has its own way of controlling and moderating water runoff....a large tree canopy tends to spread the impact more evenly across the terrain, and deep roots from old growth trees tend to hold the base soil together. Patches of scrub trees with shallow roots just don't have the same effect.....and this, combined with human development (often creating new/different/concentrated flow patterns) just makes the situation worse. There's no doubt human development played a part in this terrible event.

That said, people need to be smart. Study the terrain around you, don't buy/build a house at the base of a big hill in a really wet climate for example. Take note of the development happening around you and consider how that may affect your homestead. Just down the street from me here there are lots of million dollar homes built on a small strip of beachfront directly below a big mud faced hill which is obviously in motion. Just dumb.

Prayers are with the families of those affected.

 

[Keith]

You say this, but in the Netherlands, they reclaim land lost to the sea by some funky pumping and crops planting, and then populate the land, much of which is below sea level. It's going to take a lot more than a boy with his finger in the Dyke to save that lot if the crap strikes. Here in the UK, the recent floods were often as a result of poor land drainage management and property developers buying up cheap flood plain land and building large housing projects.

If you are tight for space and restricted by Statute, I do not see a clever and cost effective way of meeting housing targets WITHOUT building in a potentially marginal location. In the Unites States, whilst there are favourable locations aplenty in marginal situations, I would have thought that there is a whole lot more choice of where to build, so if people become bloody minded and build anyway, then they must shoulder a lot of the responsibility if the sh1t hits the fan.

 

[Larry L.]

I can't understand how they can justify that. Which budget is the tax revenue raised in this way, applied against and who collects it? Is it the utility company on behalf of the City, State or Federal?

If you'd like to wade thru all the particulars, I can P.M. (would prefer to email) all the blah, blah, blah on the city's website.