Cleaner Development for a Cleaner Bay:
Reducing Runoff At Its Source
The problems of stormwater runoff
Development is one of the biggest threats facing the Chesapeake Bay and its source waters. Current land development involves grading a site, removing native vegetation, and covering the natural landscape with concrete, asphalt and buildings. As a result, the ground becomes less able to absorb water and filter pollution like a natural ecosystem, instead creating polluted runoff.
This polluted runoff has a significant impact on water quality across Maryland. Stormwater runoff in the watershed is responsible for about 16 percent of the phosphorus, 11 percent of the nitrogen, and nine percent of the sediment polluting the bay and feeding the algal blooms which create the dead zone each summer. Stormwater runoff also pollutes the bay with toxic chemicals. Bay-wide, more pollutants such as metals and oil come from stormwater runoff than from industries, federal facilities and wastewater treatment plants combined. The loss of natural filters like forests and wetlands causes flooding, streambank erosion and loss of habitat.
Preventing this type of pollution is far simpler and cheaper than addressing the problem once it has begun. Cleaning up the stormwater runoff from existing developments will cost the state over $5 billion. Establishing stricter standards for stormwater runoff from construction and new development sites can prevent these problems before they happen.
Changing the Way We Grow
The state needs to change how it manages stormwater. Currently, developers are only required to plan for runoff during large storms, and apply standardized practices, like silt fences and stormwater ponds, to all sites.
Instead, developers should be required keep the pre-development runoff of a site by using low impact design (LID) techniques. LID aims to reduce stormwater runoff and protect water quality by making the built environment function like the natural environment. It is a strategy applied at the parcel and subdivision scale that utilizes on-site, natural features (e.g. native vegetation) and low-cost, engineered controls (e.g. rain barrels) to maintain predevelopment stormwater flows.
LID benefits the environment by preserving native vegetation and preventing stormwater flows that cause flooding and erosion, destroy habitat, and carry pollutants into waterways. LID also benefits communities and developers by improving the value of developed properties and reducing the need for costly stormwater infrastructure improvements.
By reducing runoff at its source Maryland can be a leader in stormwater management and can take significant steps to restoring the Chesapeake Bay.
For more information, contact:
Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, Environment Maryland, 410-467-0439, Jennifer@EnvironmentMaryland.org
Erin Fitzsimmons, Waterkeeper Alliance, 410-280-8525, EFitzsimmons@Waterkeeper.org
Fred Tutman, Patuxent Riverkeeper, 301-249-8200, Fred@PaxRiverkeeper.org
