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Logan Township Supervisor Joe Metzgar frequently grouses about "unfunded mandates," especially the one that requires urbanized municipalities to pay to reduce pollutants that their storm runoff carries into streams.
At a recent meeting, Metzgar released an idea he hopes might give wings to those concerns, suggesting that Logan recruit other members of the recently revived Blair County Association of Township Officials to rally against the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System mandate by directing their gripes to federal and state lawmakers, who might have the power to make changes.
"We need to do something, instead of me complaining all the time," Metzgar said.
The call for help could become a movement, starting locally, then expanding through the state with the help of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisor, according to Metzgar and Supervisors Chairman Jim Patterson, who is also president of the county association.
Unfunded mandates are a perennial bugaboo of PSATS, which will probably be receptive to the concerns, according to Patterson.
Metzgar brought up those concerns in the context of the supervisors' approval of the township's 2020 budget, which predicts a $347,000 allocation to the Intergovernmental Stormwater Committee, the 11-member council of governments responsible for MS4 projects locally.
Those projects are being planned to meet the 11 municipalities' responsibility for reducing the sediment runoff to streams in Blair County's urbanized area by 1.4 million pounds per year by 2023.
The projects will total a cost of $6.2 million, and comply with a five-year "permit" issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Logan's MS4 allocation for 2021 will be even higher, according to officials.
"It's crazy," Metzgar said.
Metzgar suggested that local officials first approach the area's federal lawmakers, as the mandate has come down from the Environmental Protection Agency to DEP.
A pair of Franklin County municipalities may have set the example for Metzgar by recently suspending their MS4 programs in protest of what they believe are excessive costs.
They plan to ask the DEP and the EPA for "more realistic options."
One of those Franklin County municipalities previously adopted a stormwater fee for owners of properties based on their square footage of impervious areas.
The fee for one property was $47,000 a year.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.