Frederick County: In For a Penny on Stormwater

The Bay Foundation blog expresses it's displeasure with Frederick County thwarting the will of the State government by assigning an absurdly rate on the "Rain Tax", the new tax being levied on only a fraction of the jurisdictions in Maryland:

Frederick County has decided to launch a penny protest of Maryland’s new stormwater pollution control law. Sadly, the protest will prove costly to county residents over the long term, in contaminated streams, flooded basements, lost recreational opportunities, and reduced property values.

Forced by a 2012 state law that requires the state’s 10 largest jurisdictions to create stormwater control fees, the Frederick County Board of Commissioners recently decided to start charging eligible properties one cent per year. That will generate a grand total of $487.81 for the county annually -– hardly enough to meet its legal obligations to clean up its own local streams and protect the health of its citizens from water pollution.

The whole "Rain Tax" seems to me to be an unfair tax; I believe that no tax in the state should be uneven between jurisdictions.  I suppose they avoid this technically by mandating that the jurisdictions set their own tax rates, but the whole "10 largest jurisdictions" things still bothers me.  And, at least the implementations I've seen so far, aside from Frederick's seem designed to pin an unfair share of the cost on the rural areas of the counties, far in excess of their contributions to storm water runoff.

I'm curious to see what the state will do about Frederick having given them the finger.