The Sierra Club Miami Group supports the adoption of an Impervious Surface Fee for the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD). For those unfamiliar with the issue, MSD currently calculates their sewer bills based on how much potable water a customer uses. For most buildings, this is a reasonable estimate of how much water goes down the drain. However it doesn’t account for storm water, and an estimated half of MSD’s infrastructure costs are driven by storm water.
An impervious surface fee is designed to charge land owners for the total amount of water that leaves their property during a storm, driven to a great extent by large roofs and paved parking lots. These fees would help cover the costs of addressing existing sewage overflow problems, encourage greenspace development and improved storm water management, plus be more equitable by significantly reducing the sewer bills of most residential customers.
