Stormwater Partners Network

 
From the Baltimore Sun:

“An O’Malley administration proposal to ease Maryland’s stringent new storm-water pollution rules won legislative approval Tuesday night, capping a fierce debate over whether the Chesapeake Bay would suffer from giving developers more time and leeway in having to clamp down on rainfall washing off their building projects.

After a three-hour hearing, the House-Senate Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review overwhelmingly endorsed emergency changes to state storm-water pollution regulations that are scheduled to take effect in a month. The revisions were proposed by the Maryland Department of the Environment after an outcry from developers and local officials had prompted lawmakers to move to roll back the regulations by legislation.”

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Neighbors of the Northwest Branch vigorously opposes the Emergency Regulations, which would dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the Stormwater Management Act of 2007, legislation that while visionary, was also long overdue.

Neighbors of the Northwest Branch is a citizen-based nonprofit dedicated to the restoration of the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River. We experience first hand the failed results of current “best management practices” for development: the deeply incised and eroding stream channels, the uncovered and vulnerable sewer pipes, the strong surges of stormwater carrying pollution and nutrients from streets and yards down the Northwest Branch to the Anacostia, the Potomac, and the Bay. Not only is the Bay dying from excess nutrients, with watermen fighting over the last few oysters, but contact with some Maryland waters causes skin ulcers. Infectious diseases may be next. This has become more than a matter of economic loss; it is a question of public health.

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Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Affairs, on the proposed package of Emergency Regulations. I ask that you vote “No” on this package, because it constitutes a weakening of an important environmental law and regulation. The proponents of these regulatory changes say that they leave the Stormwater Management Act of 2007 and its regulations intact, that they are merely clarifying what is already there, and that the exemptions and waivers that their proposal provides are simply up to local discretion, but these claims are highly misleading. The emergency regulations, if approved, will increase the loadings of sediment, nutrients and toxics to the Bay and our other waters.

By allowing some projects that are not yet fully designed to escape Environmental Site Design requirements, the emergency regulations will add to the $12 billion backlog of unmet stream restoration costs in Maryland, and the public — not the polluters — will end up paying for the damage and restoration and retrofitting costs.

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My name is Bruce Gilmore and I am an environmental consultant  currently working on stormwater runoff and erosion and  sediment control issues.  I now work for the Anacostia Watershed Society.  In the past, I worked for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation  and American Rivers.

I am pleased to appear before the AELR Committee as it reviews the  emergency regulations pertaining to the implementation of  the Maryland Stormwater Management Act of 2007 (2007 Act)

I would like to focus on the following issue:

That the regulations, as they pertain to in-fill development, establish  policy at variance with the 2007 Act and establish a precedent in stormwater  management never before legislated by the Maryland General Assembly:   directly tying stormwater management to land use designations and straying from the thirty year old policy that stormwater management is  development site specific.

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From today’s Washington Post:

Forty years ago, scores of Americans celebrated the first Earth Day. A fitting anniversary would be the unobstructed adoption of the Maryland Stormwater Management Act of 2007. For the past three years, state officials have been working to craft regulations to implement this act. These regulations take effect in May and are considered crucial steps in the campaign to prevent the destruction of the Chesapeake Bay.

However, in response to a ruckus raised by developers and municipal governments, the legislative leadership in Annapolis drew up emergency regulations that would undo the advances approved in 2007. These regulations are set to be considered by a joint House-Senate committee Tuesday. The regulations would add to the $12.billion backlog of unmet stream-restoration costs in Maryland, and the public — not the polluters — will end up paying this gigantic bill.

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