No more washing your car in the driveway. A leaky or poorly aimed sprinkler will become a city code violation. Roof gutters and rain barrels or cisterns probably will become mandatory on all buildings. Failing to pick up after Fido — in public or your own yard — will occupy the same place in no-no land as smoking inside a restaurant or letting your toddler stand on the back seat and watch you drive.
The new regulations specifically direct cities to create enforcement systems, so fines and even jail terms are coming for those who chronically allow tainted water to escape their properties.
Will rising water rates effect the value of your property? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.
Whether cleaning San Diego County’s runoff will help or hurt the overall economy is a question that nobody can answer today.
The state agency that crafted the new regulations exempted itself from the cost/benefit analysis ordinarily required under California’s ban on unfunded mandates targeted at local government, because federal law requires runoff rules.
For most of the past 40 years, regulators targeted wastewater. The results have been dramatic; California no longer dumps chemicals and raw sewage directly into creeks — and the ocean is vastly cleaner.
Experts say cleaning runoff will yield far smaller gains. What’s clear is that scrubbing or preventing runoff will raise costs, thus adding another burden for California companies.
Innovation will surely cut those costs. We’re about to find out if the gains from this new industry will make up the difference.
Read more at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Jun/07/tp-big-environmental-costs-equal-big-money-for/?#article-copy
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