In your editorial on the new storm water mandates ("Storm over storm water," Jan. 26), you say that "redevelopment efforts won't be affected immediately because existing projects are exempted under a grandfather clause." Unfortunately, that is inaccurate.

Projects that are "in the pipeline" are not grandfathered. As anyone in the development community or local government can tell you, the only projects which are exempt from the new requirements are those which have already received final approvals -- which typically are obtained right before construction starts. As you correctly noted, "The economic downturn has already put a damper on ... construction." That means there are many "shovel ready" projects which have already received zoning, preliminary or master plan approval of storm water design and other permits but which have been prevented, by the recession, from starting construction.

Those projects are most emphatically not grandfathered and may never be built if the Department of the Environment continues to insist that the new requirements apply to these pipeline projects. As one delegate remarked at a hearing in the House Environmental Matters Committee hearing Tuesday, this is an issue of "jobs, jobs, jobs" and the construction industry needs help, not additional pain.

Michael C. Powell, Baltimore

The writer is chairman of the environmental and energy law department of Gordon Feinblatt.

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