Maryland Chapter

Anne Arundel County Group

Club Backs County Stormwater Runoff Plan

The Sierra Club is urging the Anne Arundel County Council to approve legislation that would create a Stormwater Management and Restoration Fund to address the problem of runoff from existing development. 

Much of the stormwater polluting the County’s creeks and rivers comes from development that is lacking adequate stormwater management control.  Creation of the Fund would provide a dedicated source of revenue to address this critical problem.

The measure, Bill 79-11, is sponsored by Councilmember Chris Trumbauer – a Democrat and Sierra Club member whose day job is as a Riverkeeper – and co-sponsored by Dick Ladd, a Republican who served as Council Chair until the job rotated to Councilman Derek Fink recently.

By having its own fund in place, the group wrote to all councilmembers, the county would be in a better position to get yet more funding from the federal and state governments, through matching fund programs.

The proposed annual fixed fee for residential development is modest in amount -- about the cost of a crab dinner -– and will not require excessive time and effort to implement.  Because commercial development involves much more impervious surface, which varies widely, calculating individual fees make sense, the group said.

Rick Kissel, the Anne Arundel Sierra Club’s Watershed committee chair, testified at a public hearing on the issue December 5 that the damage to waterways being caused by the runoff is a growing, major public health concern, noting that numerous illnesses to humans and pets have already been recorded.

New Development is not included in Bill 79-11 because new stormwater regulations focus on retaining stormwater on site.  Without this legislation focusing on existing development, Kissel said, the County won’t be able to address a critical part of its water quality restoration efforts.