Council Fumbles SMART Fee

Last night's Council meeting was surely one of the lower points in recent County Council history. With scores of individuals testifying on behalf of the amended SMART fund (over 60 by the Capital's estimate) and only a handful speaking against, the four councilmembers who have opposed the bill since its inception, stood firm. The result likely is that we'll be without a stormwater bill until one of the other Council members (e.g., Reilly or Vitale) or the County Executive can introduce a bill that's going to stroke their ego, that is "theirs."

The Sun's take.

One Vote from a Stormwater Start

Monday's County Council meeting held several pleasant surprises. Most notable among them was Ron Dillon's recent effort to champion a stormwater utility that would build upon the County Executive's SMART fund effort.

Councilman Dillon appears to have gotten religion on the issue, declaring, "We have been 30-plus years trying to save the bay. We haven't gotten very far. It's time to be radical."

Can I get an "Amen"?

Councilmen Dillon, Benoit, and Cohen introduced the amendment to charge each residence a $25 annual fee and each business/industrial site a $100 annual fee to be used to correct the damage that has been caused by stormwater runoff at Monday's meeting. The bill will be voted on at the next meeting.

Councilwoman Vitale, who apparently thinks the $1.3 billion problem can be solved by creating tax incentives for rain barrels, "felt sandbagged" by the maneuver. However, it would be great to see her get behind this bi-partisan bill (perhaps with an amendment to create parallel incentives for good stormwater management practices), and help push Anne Arundel County to the forefront in the efforts to clean up the Bay. The bill has particular relevance for Ms. Vitale given the proposed $3.5 million going into the restoration of North Cypress Branch, on the Magothy, in her district.

Despite the fact that Councilman Middlebrooks, the most vociferous opponent of the bill, insists on calling the utility a tax, this issue was resolved last year, in a decision by the Attorney General's office.

Leopold Takes Important Step on Stormwater

The Leopold administration today announced that it is seeking to start levying a fee of $.25 on each new square foot of impervious surface created by development projects. It is estimated that this will generate something on the order of $5 million additional dollars per year for restoration and mitigation projects.

Though it's not a stormwater utility, it's certainly a step in the right direction.

Bringing Rain Barrels to Back Creek

Today's Capital reports on the creative effort by local artists and the Back Creek Conservancy to raise awareness about the damage caused by stormwater by painting rainbarrels and auctioning them off at local businesses.

Stormwater, Stormwater Everywhere, and Not a Drop for the Cows to Drink

Sunday's Sun relays the unfortunate, though not uncommon, consequences of poor stormwater design, and the comedy of errors that can ensue trying to correct it. It's a tale about a Prince George's farmer, Joseph Mills, whose creek dried up after a development went in upstream, and who has been forced to resort to watering his cattle from a fire hydrant as a result.

The ironically named Oasis Farms, an 1,800 home, mixed use community outside Bowie, put in a 6-acre farm pond, with the Army Corps of Engineers assent, to detain stormwater runoff from the property. Problem is, the stormwater that fell on that site prior to development and was converted into groundwater provided base flow for Mr. Mills' stream, an unnamed tributary of the Patuxent River.

The developer, General Growth insists it did nothing wrong, and the regulators, who unanimously approved the plans, are falling all over themselves to pin responsibility for the matter on each other. Despite the fact that, "the plan pointed out there would be both temporary and permanent changes to the way in which water drained off the land," it was approved.

And that was only the beginning. The stormwater pond not only caused the stream to dry up, it also starved a downstream wetland of water. A wetland drained of water isn't particularly good habitat, and scores of turtles, frogs, and snakes that had inhabitated it were crushed on the road seeking wetter pastures. At this point, you may ask: "Couldn't they just drain the pond?" No, they can't, because now it's polluted.

So what is the solution proposed by regulators? Drill a well and pump up groundwater to the surface to flood the area again. Nevermind the fact that that's probably only going to worsen the problem since it originated with loss of groundwater re-charge in the first place. (Some other regulators apparently suggested conveying stormwater from elsewhere into the stream, of course a bad idea because it is loaded with pollutants).

So what is the correct solution? The right solution now is the same as it was before the development went in and what it should have been required of the development itself: Use infiltration systems, like bioretention areas throughout the community to convert stormwater to groundwater. These methods, which are one component of low impact development were actually honed in Prince George's County and, the Low Impact Development Center, a clearinghouse on low impact development, is based in Beltsville.

Maryland counties have the capacity to require that low impact development methods and infiltration be used on every new development project. Why do we continue to settle for less?

County Promotes Innovative Stormwater Techniques

As is the case with so much of the good environmental work that comes out of County government, the Department of Public Works recently hosted a series of seminars on innovative stormwater management techniques. Given that Anne Arundel County has something on the order of $500 million in its maintenance and restoration backlog, it needs to be requiring best practices on all future projects.

County Stormwater Standards Inadequate

The South River Federation riverkeeper, Drew Koslow, has been keeping his eyes (and Federation water monitoring equipment) trained closely on the effluent running off from the construction site at Parole for the last several months. Photos of the site after 1/2 an inch of rain show silt-laden mud running from outfall pipes into one of the streams that feeds Church Creek.

Existing regulations only require that construction sites control the first inch of runoff. After that, sediment-laden slurry is permitted to be piped directly into local waterways which feed the Bay. According to County Spokesperson, Pam Jordan, "The site functioned as expected with that amount of rainfall." The statement is a brazen indictment of business-as-usual in Anne Arundel County, and a testament to past Administration's lack of seriousness in reversing the Bay's decline.

Somehow, the developer at Parole has been able to keep a graded, 30-acre site, open and exposed for months, without substantial stabilization measures, which in many cases, involve little more than spreading straw and grass seed. The response of outgoing Soil Conservation Chief, Jeff Opel? "There has been an attempt to maintain 50 percent of it in a state of stabilization. Have we achieved that all the time? No." Have fines been meted out to the developer as a result? Not to my knowledge. And, to add insult to injury, the site, which had been dumping sediment into the stream the day before, passed state inspection of county sediment and control enforcement on November 17th.

Existing County stormwater regulations for construction sites are a joke. Unfortunately, the joke's on us.

Restoring Our Waterways

Today's Post has good piece explaining the proposed Anne Arundel County Watershed Restoration Fund. In this election year, support for the fund, which would raise $36 million a year for the dedicated purpose of stream restoration and storm drainage projects is the local environmental issue facing county executive and county council candidates, as well the public-at-large.

The County is currently spending about $9 million a year on the maintenance and creation of stormwater infrastructure, and it still has a several hundred million dollar backlog. As with school maintenance, if we ever hope to get out of the hole that we're digging, we need to get serious about funding our ongoing needs. The current Council and Executive, with the exception of Pam Beidle (District 1) and Barbara Samorajczyk (District 6) have failed to exercise the leadership necessary to make these improvements occur. Let's hope the next Executive and Council don't show the same lack of will.

As of this post, only one County Executive candidate, George Johnson, has come out fully in support of the fund. Several County Council candidates, including Rik Forgo (District 1), Jamie Benoit (District 4), Devin Tucker (District 4), A.J. "Tito" Baca (District 5), Josh Cohen (District 6), Phil Dales (District 6), and Robert Tufts (District 7) have come out in support of the $5/month fee [If there are others, please send me an e-mail].

[One correction in the Post piece: The article states, "Businesses would pay a proportionate amount. Coalition leaders are hoping a newly elected council this fall would determine the best way to raise the money. An increase in property tax is one possibility." In fact, a property tax increase is not a possibility, as the tax cap would prevent that from happening. The most likely option is an additional utility fee, like many county residents currently pay for water, wastewater, and trash.]

Personal Responsibility and the Bay

Some folks are moved to protect the Bay because they see the Bay as an end in itself. They believe the Bay and the organisms that inhabit it have their own majesty and deserve the ability to make their way in this world as each one of us does. It would be worth saving even if we were not here.

Others choose to help restore the Bay because of the good that it provides to humans. The Bay's "resources" provide a livelihood for watermen, and sustenance for those of us who partake of its bounty. Its grasses and inhabitants clean the water of pollutants, and the Bay itself is a playground for many area residents. Of course, for many, their motivation is some combination of the two.

Some others, perhaps, don't care much about the Bay one way or another. They argue, that since they don't use the Bay for boating or swimming, or eat crabs and oysters from the Bay, they have no particular obligation to protect, restore, or otherwise "save" the Bay. For these individuals, let me take a page out of the "personal responsibility" playbook.

In this day and age, it's almost impossible to get through a political diatribe without some mention of "personal responsibility". The gist being, "our followers have it, yours don't." Never mind the fact that everyone I've ever discussed the subject with professes to have it. The fact is, we all like to think we are "personally responsible". My hope is, we all are. Part of personal responsibility is limiting the harm that we do to others, and to property which is not ours, to zero. Each and every one of us who owns a home in the Bay watershed, and who allows stormwater to leave our property, and flow onto the property of another, or into community property, is currently harming either our neighbors' property, or the property that we hold in common.

The Stormwater Restoration Fund, that has been mentioned here a number of times is, in essence, an effort to get us to take a share of personal responsibility for the damage we have done by adding impervious surface to the land. Please contact your County Council person and tell them that you would like to see County residents start taking personal responsibility for their property by introducing and passing the stormwater restoration fund.

Stepping Up to Stop Stormwater

Last Thursday, several local legislators were taken on a tour of sites that had been badly damaged by stormwater runoff and some that had been recently remediated. The tour was lead by citizens trying to build support for a watershed restoration fund (aka, a stormwater utility), and making an attempt to educate county council members about the extent of the problem.

Councilwomen Beidle (D-Linthicum) and Samorajczyk (D-Annapolis) are the only two solidly behind the implementation of the fund, which would cost homeowners about $60/year, while Councilmen Reilly (R-Crofton/South County) and Dillon (R-Pasadena) seem to have the good sense to recognize there is a serious problem, but lack the leadership ability to get firmly behind the fee. Councilmembers Vitale (R-Severna Park), Burlison (D-Crofton), and Middlebrooks (R-Glen Burnie) apparently think the problem will take care of itself, or simply don't care.

Even if Reilly and Dillon could be brought on board, our fearless leader, Executive Owens, has threatened to veto the bill, because she thinks it would be "unfair to saddle the next administration with the fee." How thoughtful. I wonder if such doubt crossed Bob Ehrlich's mind when he signed the "flush fee" bill.

Returning the Rain

One of the foremost goals of this site, in addition to providing commentary on local goings on, is to try to educate people, particularly those living in Anne Arundel County and the Chesapeake region, in ways that we can act individually (and collectively) to help preserve our natural environment. As most of us know, one of the most persistent sources of pollution and sedimentation in the Bay and its estuaries is runoff from residential, commercial, and agricultural properties. It is said that, during the period prior to European colonization, when the Bay watershed was largely forested, there was almost no "runoff". Significant amounts of rainwater were absorbed by the forest canopy, and the rain that wasn't, soaked into the humus-rich forest floor, and eventually into the groundwater.

Any casual glance around Chesapeake country makes it clear that we won't be going back to the days of full forest cover any time soon, but there are steps we can take to try, at least partially, to mimic that hydrological flow once again. The first step is to reject the conventional wisdom of subdivision engineering, which was, effectively: "Convey rainwater off a site as quickly as possible, through either pipes or swales into the nearest body of water." Evidence of this dumb design is all around. Only very recently has engineering practice begun to change what was so obviously an unsustainable method of dealing with stormwater.

Now, homeowners, businesses, and farmers, are being asked to try to deal with their stormwater on site, which makes sense both environmentally and philosophically. Why should we let individual stormwater mis-management create a tragedy of the commons? As has been mentioned in previous columns, rain gardens at the bottom of downspouts are a great way both to keep a bed of native plants well watered and to help infiltrate water into the ground. Rain barrels, each of which can hold 50 gallons or more are often a good addition as well. And, if you have a driveway which needs to be replaced, consider permeable paving, which can include: Reinforced gravel paving, reinforced grass paving, interlocking concrete blocks or plastic cell networks filled with gravel or soil and grass, pervious asphalt, or pervious concrete.

Talking about Sediment and Erosion Control

Last Monday, November 24, I attended an informative and well-conceived workshop on sediment and erosion control put together by Anne Pearson, Director of the Alliance for Sustainable Communities, and members of the Anne Arundel Watershed Network. The event brought together County representatives, such as Ron Bowen, Director of Public Works, Spurge Eismeier, Director of Inspections and Permits, and Jeff Opel, Manager for the Anne Arundel Soil Conservation District , with community activists and other county bureaucrats. Also speaking at the event was Brant Keller, Director of Public Works and Stormwater Utilities for the City of Griffin, GA. Keller was dynamic and informative in describing how Griffin, a city of 24,000 (Annapolis is a city of about 35,000), has managed to implement a stormwater utility, and raise millions of dollars to address the problems caused by stormwater runoff, and disincentivize the promulgation of impervious surface.

Anne Arundel County, one of the counties with among the most waterfrontage in the entire country, has lagged behind in adopting progressive reforms such as a stormwater utility. These fees help residents and commercial enterprises pay their fair share for the damage that the impervious surfaces on their property cause to our natural environment, rather than passing those costs on to the public-at-large. They help to begin to "create an honest market" [pdf]. More on this later.....