PORT TOWNSEND — A countywide per-parcel fee proposed to fund Jefferson County’s Clean Water District has dried up for lack of support.
“In my mind, at least the per-parcel fee, is dead for now,” county Commissioner David Sullivan said Friday after he and fellow commissioners Phil Johnson and John Austin received a chilly City Council reception Thursday night.
That leaves the district, which was formed in October, with no funding.
During a joint city-county meeting, the three commissioners and a county health official presented a proposal for a new, reduced fee for the district covering Eastern Jefferson County.
The district, orignally estimated to cost $500,000 annually, would offer water monitoring and an educational program.
The proposed fee would annually charge county residents $4 per parcel and $1 per parcel for city of Port Townsend and Port Ludlow master-planned community residents, who are served by separate sewer systems.
The fee would raise about $84,000 a year.
