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An Act To Ensure Adequate Funding for the Maine Pollutant Discharge Elimination System and Waste Discharge Licensing Program
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. 38 MRSA §353-B, sub-§2, ¶A, as corrected by RR 2011, c. 2, §43, is amended to read:
 
A. The fees for waste discharge license groups are the 2018 bill amounts increased by a factor of 1.4 as follows.
 
On an annual basis, municipalities and publicly owned treatment works whose combined sewer overflows have the potential to affect shellfish harvesting areas as determined by the department by virtue of their locations within estuarine or marine waters of the State must be assessed a surcharge on their wastewater discharge licenses in a total amount of $12,000. This amount must be allocated among the municipalities and publicly owned treatment works according to their prior 3-year average annual flows as reported to the department.
 
On an annual basis, publicly owned treatment works whose outfalls licensed for the discharge of treated effluent cause adjacent shellfish growing areas to be closed for the purposes of harvesting shellfish must be assessed a license surcharge in a total amount of $25,000. This amount must be allocated among the publicly owned treatment works according to the acreage that each licensed outfall closes. This acreage must be determined by the Department of Marine Resources in consultation with the department.
 
SUMMARY
This bill increases the annual waste discharge license fee for certain categories of existing discharges by 40% from the 2018 bill amount, and the annual discharge license fee for certain categories of new discharges by 40% from the amount indicated in the Department of Environmental Protection fee schedule effective November 1, 2018 to October 31, 2019.