Maryland House Passes Storm-water Compromise, Environmentalists Split

I’ve said before most legislators in the Maryland General Assembly aren’t willing to do even close to what is necessary to restore the Chesapeake Bay.  Unfortunately, the showdown over storm-water regulations  has proven this to be true once again.  In 2007 the General Assembly passed the Storm-water Management Act, which set storm-water standards for the Maryland Department of Environment to implement.  The showdown over what that implementation would look like happened this session.  There was the threat of legislation to roll back the standards, and some environmental groups and lawmakers forged compromise legislation with the developers for many of their redevelopment projects to be grandfathered in, and sheltered from the new regulations for quite some time.

Link: “The measure sets statewide stormwater standards that redevelopment projects must meet to reduce run off. The bill was born out of a need to deal with a new set of state rules defining the way water could run off new or re-developed properties. Developers had objected to the rules, saying they were so restrictive they would stop growth–or re-direct it into undeveloped areas, away from “smart growth” sites near urban cores. Developers had hired some of the biggest lobbying firms in the capital to stop the measure.“

But some environmental groups weren’t happy with this move…

“More than 30 Maryland environmentalists–including a former governor, a former U.S. senator and a former congressman–held a press conference today in Annapolis to denounce efforts to revise rules on pollution flowing to the Chesapeake Bay through storm sewers.  The event, led by former U.S. Senator Joseph Tydings (D-Md.), was another sign of a fracturing in Maryland’s green community over an arcane area of environmental law.”

“Under that deal, some un-finished projects could be “grandfathered” in, built under the old stormwater rules, if they received the right kind of permission. Also, some projects could face looser restrictions in “in-fill” developments.

At today’s press conference, activists said that was giving developers too long a leash.
“The compromise was not a good deal,” said former Maryland state Senator Gerald W. Winegrad (D). “This is an environmental outrage. Let’s stop it now.” Also speaking were former Gov. Harry Hughes (D) and former U.S. Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R).

Afterward, Dottie Yunger–whose title is Anacostia Riverkeeper–said that these groups had come together to disprove the notion that the two organizations in those meetings had achieved the best deal possible for the environment.

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “You negotiated the best deal you thought you could get, and you didn’t represent the rest of the environmental community.”

In the end, the bill passed the House of Delegates by a wide margin.  Below my take is a good article by Hometown Glenburnie writer Pamela Wood, which presents the points of view and explains what’s next.

My take on this is that politicians in Maryland need to be forced to start taking tough votes on the Bay.  I sometimes favor the “incrementalist” strategy being taken by the environmental groups that brokered the compromise, but in this case, in an election year, we should be pushing the envelope.  These new rules are so weak I’d hardly call them progress.  Get politicians on the record siding with big developers, and hammer them this fall for it.  By forging a compromise, we gave the General Assembly lawmakers such an easy vote, now they can all look good for voting on” storm-water regulations” and “protecting jobs”.  If we truly want to make progress on the Bay, we need to keep our friends in office and throw the bums out.  This vote blurs the line between the two.

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article

Stormwater pollution has been the biggest environmental issue facing the state this year, with lawmakers, lobbyists and activists dividing themselves into camps according to how stringent they think the new rules should be.

And now environmental activists are divided, too.

More than 30 riverkeepers and other activists lined up in the State House in Annapolis Wednesday for a news conference to call on lawmakers to summon the political courage to ensure that stricter stormwater-pollution controls on new development are implemented as planned.

They had three Maryland political legends on their side: former governor Harry Hughes, former congressman Wayne Gilchrest and former U.S. senator Joe Tydings.

Notably absent from the news conference were the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other environmental groups that are sticking by a compromise, hammered out in recent weeks, that weakens the new rules.

“All it takes is for the people in this building who hold the reins of power not to give up that power,” Gilchrest said, encouraging lawmakers not to cave in and accept the compromise.

Gilchrest said lawmakers should “hold onto the reins of power and do the right thing,” which earned a standing ovation from the activists gathered at the event.

Polluted stormwater runoff is a vexing problem for those trying to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.

When it rains, the water rushes along rooftops,parking lots, driveways and highways. It picks up nutrients, sediment, chemicals and trash as it rushes into streams and creeks that feed the bay.

Polluted stormwater from urban and suburban areas is the only source of bay pollution that is increasing.

Bay advocates said putting state-of-the-art stormwater controls on new construction sites is important because it will mean less pollution from developed areas for their entire lifetime. And it can prevent the need for expensive restoration projects.

The current effort to clamp down on polluted stormwater runoff goes back to 2007. That year, Maryland lawmakers passed a bill requiring new construction projects to have stepped-up pollution controls. Ideally, the flow of water from new development should mimic the flow before construction, the bill said.

Building industry and local government groups eventually came on board.

The Maryland Department of the Environment then spent the next few years writing detailed requirements for construction projects. The new rules were set to go into effect May 4, but builders and local government balked.

They said the requirements were onerous and expensive, especially for redevelopment projects in cities, where there are space constraints.

They found sympathy in lawmakers, who introduced bills to weaken the new requirements.

But those bills all were put on hold while a compromise was hashed out between the parties involved. A key feature of the compromise was exempting more projects “in the pipeline” from the rules through an expanded grandfathering provision.

Environmentalists weren’t thrilled, but some groups – including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Maryland League of Conservation Voters and 1000 Friends of Maryland – accepted the deal.

But the compromise didn’t impress one key lawmaker. The reworked requirements would have to gain approval from a joint House-Senate committee that reviews administrative regulations.

The chairman, Sen. Paul G. Pinsky, D-Prince George’s, a staunch environmentalist, said he wouldn’t let the rules pass.

Square one

So now environmentalists, builders, local government officials and state lawmakers are back to square one on the stormwater fight.

But this time, environmentalists are split.

One faction of environmental groups is pushing for a result that looks like the compromise. The other faction – the 30-plus gathered this week – is pushing for the original rules to stand.

Kim Coble, Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, acknowledged that the compromise on the stormwater rules was not ideal. But she said it’s better than sending a bill through the General Assembly that could end up with even weaker rules.

“The compromise language in the bill reflects just that, a compromise,” Coble said in a prepared statement. “There are some areas in which the environmental agenda was strengthened, and some in which we slid back.”

In Maryland politics, environmental groups often are faced with the choice of sticking to their guns or bending somewhat in order to get a new policy passed, rather than see it not pass at all.

In this case, Coble said, the better choice was to bend.

“A public relations victory is not worth the gamble if stormwater controls in Maryland are further weakened,” she said.

EPA Blocks Mountaintop Removal Mine!

I’ve been very critical of the EPA’s inability to follow the science on mountaintop removal, and halt the destructive practice.  However, it’s worth highlighting this recent positive piece of news.  According to Solve Climate, the EPA has “raised the bar for mountaintop mining today with a proposal to stop or at least significantly restrict one of Appalachia’s largest and most disputed mining operations, the Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County, W.Va.”

Below is an excerpted chunk of their article, and I’d suggest checking it out for some great context of the entire situation.

“The sprawling Spruce No. 1 mine site, already in operation, has been a point of contention and lawsuits from environmental groups for over a decade. EPA has gone back and forth with the Army Corps of Engineers over whether the owner, an Arch Coal subsidiary, would cause too much damage to the state’s waterways with its mining plan. In 2007, however, the Corps and the state of West Virginia moved ahead, authorizing mining to begin.

While the Corps has the authority to approve mining permits, EPA has veto power when it reviews environmental impact statements, and that’s what it is proposing to use now. It has used that authority only 12 times and never before for an already permitted mine like Spruce No. 1.

EPA Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic, Shawn Garvin, said his agency tried to work with the mining company to decrease the environmental and health risks from the project but the talks failed.

“Coal, and coal mining, is part of our nation’s energy future, and for that reason EPA has made repeated efforts to foster dialogue and find a responsible path forward. But we must prevent the significant and irreversible damage that comes from mining pollution — and the damage from this project would be irreversible,” Garvin said. “EPA has a duty under the law to protect water quality and safeguard the people who rely on these waters for drinking, fishing and swimming.”

In the proposed determination released today, Garvin wrote: “EPA believes that the predicted impacts from the Spruce No. 1 mine, if constructed as currently authorized, could have unacceptable effects on wildlife and fisheries.” He talked about the degradation of water from mining debris that is dumped into streams with unearthed metals and elements, such as selenium, which can cause birth defects in fish. The dumping of mining debris in streams also destroys habitat relied upon by the region’s salamanders, fish and smaller creatures, such as insects that are key elements in the food chain for birds, bats and other animals, he wrote. And pollutions would become a problem downstream from the valley fills and could contribute to conditions that support golden algae blooms, which release more toxins dangerous to aquatic life. There is a cumulative impact that needs to be considered, he said.

It is important to remember that the streams that would be filled with debris from Spruce No. 1 mining, particularly Oldhouse Branch and Pigeonroost Branch, currently “are generally healthy, functioning streams with good water quality,” Garvin wrote.

This is a region of West Virginia where state officials, in a 1997 assessment, identified as a priority the need to “locate and protect the few remaining high-quality streams.” The Coal River sub-basin has had more than 257 past and present mining permits, collectively occupying some 13 percent of the land, according to the EPA. At the same time, the area has about 51 species listed as endangered, threatened or state rear species, and many of them rely on aquatic ecosystems for their lifecycle.

“The streams that will be buried cannot be viewed in a vacuum,” Garvin wrote. “When those streams and wildlife are buried, there will be effects to downstream waters and downstream wildlife caused by the removal of functions performed by the buried resources and by transformation of the buried areas into source that may contribute pollutants to downstream waters.”

The Weekly Mulch: Clock Ticking for Climate Legislation

Below is a re-post of The Media Consortium’s Weekly Mulch.

Weekly Mulch: Clock Ticking for Climate Change Legislation

By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger

Seven months out from the midterms, electoral anxieties are hampering potential climate change legislation. Election years are a time to pass easy, politically popular policies, and climate change legislation does not fit that bill. For the Senate’s climate change legislation to have a chance, Congress has to sweep through the financial overhaul faster than any bill in its history. Otherwise, politicians’ focus will shift to the midterms before they pass a climate bill.

The next international climate negotiations are just weeks after the November midterms, and failure to pass a bill now means that the United States could show up once again without a solid platform from which to negotiate. After working on climate legislation for over a year, leaders on the Hill and in the executive branch are getting nervous.

At this point, any climate legislation that reaches the president’s desk will have far less impact than advocates once hoped, but Congress can still pass a bill that moves the country forward on this issue.

Tick tock

Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are working on a bill. On Thursday, Sen. Graham half-promised it would come a couple of weeks after Congress’ spring recess. That’s not the end of the process, though, as Kate Sheppard reports for Mother Jones. The Environmental Protection Agency will also take a crack at the bill and weigh in on its cost and overall environmental benefits.

That process could take a month and a half, Sheppard says, and on Capitol Hill, Democrats are getting antsy. “If the legislation isn’t ready to go to the floor by Memorial Day, it probably won’t make it there at all this year,” Sheppard writes.

Connie Hedegaard, the outgoing Danish Minister of Climate and Energy who hosted this year’s international climate negotiations at Copenhagen, also noticed the unease in a series of meetings with environmental leaders ranging from Todd Stern, the U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, to Carol Browner, head of the White House Climate and Energy Office. Hedegaard told Inter Press Service (IPS) that “she got the sense that they are not sure “what will fly and what will not fly or when” with regards to U.S. climate legislation.”

“I definitely get the feeling that if [the legislation] fails this time then it would not come until after the midterm elections,” Hedegaard said.

That means the U.S. would go to the next round of international negotiations empty handed. As IPS notes, midterm elections “take place Nov. 2. The Cancun climate conference starts Nov. 29.”

Energy reduction is key

As far as anyone can tell, the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill is not going to do a great job limiting carbon emissions. Don’t expect that to change between now and May, or whenever the bill comes to a vote. In the absence of a real cap on carbon, Grist’s David Roberts has some advice for the trio of senators on what they can do:

“The main goal with your bill should be to establish a framework whereby a carbon price is implemented and steadily raised. The initial price can be low — low enough to avoid the kind of political backlash that has poisoned previous efforts — and phase in over time so affected industries have time to prepare … In exchange for reducing the role of carbon pricing, you should push to strengthen and expand the clean energy and efficiency provisions in your bill.”

In other words, the bill can avoid the politically treacherous cap-and-trade system, as long as it pushes through strong policies for programs like energy efficient appliances, home insulation, and other actions that reduce the amount of energy we’re using.

Who watches the watchmen?

Climate legislation, even in weakened form, is still on the table, so the amount of finger-pointing over its difficulties has been limited so far. But in The Nation a few weeks back, Johann Hari threw a stink bomb at big environmental groups, arguing that their increasing coziness with the corporate world had checked their political strength and led them to advocate for milquetoast environmental policies.

This week, the magazine published responses from the groups profiled, who called the story “plump with distortions of reality” and “a toxic mixture of inaccurate information and uninformed analysis.”

The responses are worth a read, as is Hari’s original article. In his rebuttal, Hari asks the critics to point out specific inaccuracies in his story and worries at the defensiveness of the environmental community. “Do none of these people feel any concern that the leading environmental groups in America are hoovering up cash from the worst polluters and advocating policies that fall far short of what scientists say we need to safely survive the climate crisis?” he writes.

Local action for green jobs

If big environmental groups are not as perfect as one might hope, more local environmental efforts can still make an impact, albeit on a different scale. Chris Rabb and Colorlines profile three grassroots efforts to create green jobs in three corners of the country. In Los Angeles, solar panels went up on roofs; in New York, more low income communities won access to public transportation; and in Arizona, a Navajo group formed to advocate for more green jobs in their community.

“We need all kinds of solutions–local, state, and national–and as we’ve seen the people need to make it happens,” says Rabb.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.