Maryland lawmakers approved a compromise to ease the state's new Environment Site Design stormwater pollution rules Tuesday night, giving developers more time and leeway in having to clamp down on rainfall washing off for some construction sites. Now the challenge of implementing the new regulations fall upon the design community, and MDSPE is taking steps to provide the needed training.
The changes approved by the legislative committee could exempt 1,000 to 1,500 development projects statewide from the new stormwater rules for up to seven years, and possibly longer in some cases, because those projects already are in the local planning pipeline. Officials provided those estimates yesterday for the first time. The changes also give local officials more leeway to relax some runoff controls for redevelopment projects.
The Maryland and National Capital Sections of ASCE as well as the MidAtlantic Surveyor Education Institute have joined MDSPE is offering workshops on how to comply with the technical requirements of the new regulation. Our first ESD workshop will be conducted on April 28, followed by a more detailed workshop on the design and construction of bioretention systems a month later. For information on the workshops, go to http://www.mdspe.org/continuing-education-2.htm
THE NEW ESD REGULATIONS
The new emergency regulations become effective today. They will last for six months, during which time MDE must propose final regulation changes and provide for public input. MDE will also develop Model Ordinance language that will be used by counties and municipalities who choose to modify their stormwater management ordinances to include grandfathering and the additional redevelopment policy. This language will be available in the coming weeks.
“The new regulations and guidance describe what types of development projects waiting for local approval may be eligible for grandfathering and waiver provisions that were already available but not well defined,” says MDE. “Note that no substantive changes have been made to the new technical standards or to any provisions of the Stormwater Management Act of 2007.”
“Certain projects will use the existing standards“ says MDE. “However, the vast majority of development and redevelopment projects will, after May of 2010, use environmental site design to the maximum extent practicable. All new projects proposed after May 2010 will be required to implement environmental site design to the maximum extent possible.” This guidance is posted on MDE's at http://www.mde.state.md.us/assets/document/Stormwater%20Guidance%20Document.pdf
The new regulations also delineate how developers can pay for alternatives to laying pervious surfaces that would absorb rainwater if they become prohibitive.
LEGISLALTIVE DRAMA
After a three-hour hearing yesterday, the House-Senate Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review overwhelmingly endorsed emergency changes to state stormwater 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.
Members of the AELR Committee who were attending other, regularly scheduled hearings, were pulled out by staffers to vote for the compromise Tuesday evening. The committee’s co-chairmen, Pinsky and Delegate Anne Healy of Prince George’s County, and Sen. Richard Madaleno of Montgomery County were the only members to oppose the compromise.
“The proposal you have before you is a very sound one,” Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Shari Wilson told the committee during a hearing Tuesday. “Let’s not lose sight of the fact that in literally 30 days Maryland is going to be a national leader on stormwater.”
The dispute over stormwater stems from legislation passed in 2007 that called for a significant reduction in runoff from new construction and development. The legislation left it to the Maryland Department of the Environment to develop the specific regulations on how to implement the law.
With those new regulations set to take effect in May, developers and local elected officials began publicly opposing the measure late last year after it appeared the rules would stifle projects already planned for construction. Officials in such jurisdictions as Baltimore County were particularly vocal in their criticism, saying they feared that the stormwater rules would end up making redevelopment of older neighborhoods too expensive, essentially undermining their efforts at Smart Growth.
As the debate wound through the beginning of the year, questions about whether developers and local leaders held off on voicing opposition until late in the game became a separate, sub-debate.
Senator Paul Pinsky, a Prince George’s Democrat and chairman of the AELR committee, said that developers wanted a “do-over” from the 2007 rules.
Sen. Pinsky had stalled panel action on the department's proposed changes to the regulations until yesterday. He relented after the House overwhelmingly passed legislation making the same changes, and with Senate action looming. Pinsky said he wanted more information about their impact before acting, but was among the handful voting "no" at the hearing's end.
"The bay is dying by a thousand cuts," Pinsky said. "Is this the worst one No, but it's symptomatic."
But Candace Donoho, lobbyist for the Maryland Municipal League, said groups repeatedly voiced their concerns between 2007 and 2009 before going public.
“We did raise the concerns as they were moving through” the regulations, Donoho said. “I was basically told if I didn’t accept what was coming down the road, it was only going to get worse.”
As criticism grew during the General Assembly, lawmakers, some environmental advocates, developers and local elected officials hammered out a compromise that addressed many of the biggest concerns related to the stormwater regulations.
While the compromise brought together developers and some environmentalists, it also opened a rift in Maryland’s environmental community that was visible during Tuesday’s three-hour hearing.
A coterie of environmental activists opposed the compromise, saying it would allow pollution to continue for too long during a critical time for the Chesapeake Bay.
“I feel like I’m at a funeral for the Chesapeake Bay,” said former state senator Gerald Winegrad.
Asked to explain the divide in the environmental community, Winegrad said that other environmentalists “made a very bad mistake and negotiated the compromise that is before us.”
Kim Coble, Maryland executive director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, defended the environmentalists who favor the compromise and defended the measure itself.
Among other things, the new regulations define a time-span for projects to be grandfathered in under the old standard. The tougher regulations could have allowed for indefinite grandfathering of projects, Coble said.
“It contains a new provision which is to actually end grandfathering by the year 2017,” Coble said. “We actually look at this as an improvement.”
While the compromise drew extensive support from much of the General Assembly leadership and Gov. Martin O’Malley’s administration, it was unclear until Tuesday’s vote how the deal would be implemented.
At first, negotiators planned on moving the compromise regulations through the joint AELR Committee. But Sen. Pinsky quickly announced that he opposed the compromise and indicated that he would not schedule a hearing for his committee to consider it. After it became apparent the alternative method would be successful, Pinsky relented and called a hearing on the compromise.
So lawmakers who supported the compromise amended the deal onto another stormwater-related bill. The House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved the compromise last month, and a Senate committee was set to hold a hearing on the legislation on Thursday if the AELR committee had declined to take a vote. After the AELR vote, Del. Marvin Holmes, a Prince George's Democrat who'd introduced legislation relaxing the stormwater rules, told the Baltimore Sun that he would withdraw his bill now that the changes had been made via regulation.
