Deal "no deal" on storm water

"It's like deja vu all over again," said Winegrad, an Annapolis Democrat who recalled that developers howled in the early 1980s when he sponsored the state's first law attempting to control storm-water from building sites.  The inadequacy of that law was what prompted environmental advocates to push for strengthening it in 2007, he said.  But before it passed, that legislation was "eviscerated," Winegrad contended, weakening its original requirement that runoff from developed land be no different than what it was before construction started.

"Enough is enough," he exhorted at the press conference.  "The compromise was not a good compromise....This is outrageous.  This is an environmental outrage.  Let's stop it now."

Later, at the House hearing on the bill to revise the 2007 storm-water law, it got a little muddy just what everyone was arguing about.  Environment Secretary Shari T. Wilson testified that her department had already issued guidance clarifying its rules and giving local officials flexibility to ease pollution-control requirements on some development and redevelopment projects.

And as part of the agreement struck two weeks ago, her agency also had proposed emergency changes to its rules spelling out essentially the same things.  But Wilson volunteered to lawmakers that she was fine with the bill, too, since its provisions mirrored how her department proposed to enforce the law.

The bill's sponsor, Del. Marvin Holmes, a Prince George's County Democrat, likewise said his legislation - originally granting breaks to a variety of development projects - had been rewritten to dovetail with the department's guidance.  He suggested that environmentalists critical of the bill hadn't read the latest language - indeed, it wasn't generally available at the time of the hearing.

Outside the hearing room, Diane Cameron with the Audubon Naturalist Society wasn't ready to concede that there was nothing left to fight about if the state environment department had already issued guidelines granting builders the same breaks that the legislation would provide.  She complained that she hadn't had a chance to read the bill, but she said she suspected it would significantly narrow the scope of the law and rules.

"Why do they need to enact legislation if all they're doing is issuing guidance?" she asked.

Michael Powell, a lawyer/lobbyist representing developers, said that while the agency's guidelines addressed their concerns, the builders wanted legislative or regulatory changes because those would spell out more clearly how the new pollution-control rules would be applied. They didn't want to have to guess, he said, whether their projects might or might not qualify for waivers from the new requirements.

"One thing developers need is certainty," Powell said. (Of course, what the lawyer didn't mention is that by having their breaks spelled out in law or regulations, it would be easier to go to court if they feel they're being unfairly denied.)

Kim Coble, Maryland director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said her group stood by its support of the deal struck two weeks ago, arguing that it actually put limits on the breaks builders would get, which weren't spelled out in the original rules or administration guidelines.  Builders with projects that already have preliminary approval from local planning agencies can proceed under the state's old pollution-control rules, for instance, as long as they start construction by 2017.

But environmental critics suggested that the foundation and the O'Malley administration had been pressured by McIntosh into agreeing to unwarranted concessions that could delay and weaken the push to rein in polluted runoff.

The Baltimore city Democrat, though, insisted she had engineered the behind-the-scenes deal two weeks ago in an attempt to avoid a legislative struggle over the storm-water rules.  She denied twisting anyone's arm, and insisted that the breaks offered developers would be limited and monitored to ensure they aren't abused.

McIntosh said she plans to ask her committee to vote by week's end on sending the bill to the House floor.  Should it pass the House, its fate in the Senate is uncertain with only two weeks remaining in the legislative session.  Sen. Paul Pinsky, another Prince George's Democrat, has already held up action on the environment department's proposal to make emergency changes to its rules.

"Nobody wanted this," a frustrated McIntosh said, referring to having the legislature change the law to specify breaks for developers that the administration already had said the law and its regulations permit. "Is it needed?  I contend not." But amid the heated rhetoric and rumors swirling in Annapolis, she added, "nobody trusts anything.  So, yeah, I'm moving a bill."

(Baltimore Sun file photos by Glenn Fawcett and Monica Lopossay)