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APRIL 2021 R: 21-03-B REPORT THROUGH THE CRACKS: HOW UNREGULATED STORMWATER RUNOFF IS PREVENTING A SUCCESSFUL CHESAPEAKE BAY CLEANUP AUTHOR Becky Hammer ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NRDC would like to thank the Campbell Foundation for supporting our Chesapeake Bay work and making this report possible. Sincere thanks to the peer reviewers who took time to provide their expert comments on the report: Cori Bell, NRDC; Jon Devine, NRDC; Lee Epstein, Chesapeake Bay Foundation; and Liz Feinberg, CalVan Environmental. Thanks also to the following people for their feedback during various stages of developing the report: Joan Matthews, NRDC; Tina Swanson, NRDC; Peter Marx, Choose Clean Water Coalition; Ben Alexandro, Maryland League of Conservation Voters; and Katherine Schinasi, Corsica River Conservancy. Thanks to Leah Stecher at NRDC for her hard work editing this report and shepherding it through the publications process. Finally, special thanks to Evan Isaacson at Chesapeake Legal Alliance for providing invaluable assistance downloading and interpreting CAST modeling data, and Susan Lee at NRDC for creating the map of MS4-regulated areas in the Bay watershed. About NRDC NRDC is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world’s natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Montana, and Beijing. Visit us at nrdc.org. NRDC Chief Communications Officer:Michelle Egan NRDC Managing Directors of Communications: Lisa Goffredi and Jenny Powers NRDC Policy Publications Editor: Leah Stecher Cover: © Matt Rath/Chesapeake Bay Program Design and Production: www.suerossi.com © Natural Resources Defense Council 2021 Table of Contents I. Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 4 II. Stormwater in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed ................................................................................................. 5 III. How Stormwater Is—and Isn’t—Regulated ...................................................................................................... 7 When regulated area becomes unregulated: The mysterious case of the shrinking MS4s ........................................................ 8 IV. Chesapeake Stormwater Loads From Unregulated Sources ............................................................................. 9 A closer look: Unregulated stormwater loads by jurisdiction .................................................................................................... 9 V. Why Current Efforts to Tackle Unregulated Stormwater Are Failing .............................................................. 11 Regulation of land development .................................................................................................................................................13 Regulation of specific activities that affect stormwater ............................................................................................................14 Government implementation of stormwater management practices .........................................................................................15 Incentive programs to promote voluntary stormwater controls by nongovernmental entities ................................................15 Technical assistance ...................................................................................................................................................................16 VI. Unregulated Stormwater Policy Solutions ......................................................................................................16 Regulatory policies .....................................................................................................................................................................17 Nonregulatory policies ...............................................................................................................................................................19 Direct implementation by the public sector .............................................................................................................................. 20 Technical assistance and education ...........................................................................................................................................21 VII. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 22 VIII. Appendix ...................................................................................................................................................... 23 I. Executive Summary The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure, but it’s in bad shape. Pollution sources across the watershed dump millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus and billions of pounds of sediment into the Bay each year. When that pollution enters the Chesapeake and its tributaries, it creates “dead zones,” causing massive damage to ecosystems and threatening public health and local economies dependent on recreation, tourism, and fishing. In 2010 the Environmental Protection Agency adopted But a loophole in federal law threatens the success of a far-reaching cleanup plan for the Bay, one of the most this critical effort. Because the Clean Water Act doesn’t ambitious federal watershed restoration programs in our regulate all sources of stormwater, huge amounts of nation’s history. The plan establishes target limits on pollution are slipping through the cracks. The Clean Water nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads issued from Act requires federal pollution control permits only for industrial operations, farms, sewage treatment plants, air stormwater discharges in densely populated urban areas. emissions, and stormwater runoff from the urban landscape As a result, more than three million acres of developed land in the Bay watershed, which includes parts of Delaware, across the Bay watershed face no federal requirements to Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, reduce the harmful storm runoff coming from buildings, and the District of Columbia. roads, parking lots, and lawns. © USEPA/Eric Vance © USEPA/Eric Page 4 THROUGH THE CRACKS NRDC This gap in regulation is an enormous problem. Pollutant This paper lays out the full scope of the unregulated load models show that unregulated stormwater actually stormwater problem and provides a road map for fixing it. carries more pollution into the Bay than does permit- A menu of policy solutions—including regulatory reforms, regulated stormwater. Across the watershed, 60 percent incentive programs, robust public funding, technical of stormwater-related nitrogen pollution comes from assistance, and education—can help advocates and unregulated areas. And in some states, that proportion is decision makers chart a path forward on this challenging much higher. issue. These policies can succeed if they are developed strategically and tailored to local conditions. Perhaps The federal, state, and local government agencies charged most important, our leaders must find the political will to with the Bay clean-up know that unregulated stormwater implement them. is a big problem. They’ve taken small steps to address the issue, but none of them have developed a comprehensive Ignoring the problem of unregulated stormwater won’t plan to solve it. Without the legal framework of federal make it go away. Neither will it provide communities in stormwater permits to drive mandatory pollution the Chesapeake region with clean water. On the other reductions, current efforts are weak, underfunded, and hand, scientists and economists estimate that taking ineffective. As a result, unregulated stormwater pollution comprehensive action to fully clean up the Bay would in the Chesapeake continues to increase year after year, provide billions of dollars in economic benefits each year. threatening the success of the entire Bay restoration If we want to restore this ecosystem so that we can enjoy program. those benefits today and for generations to come, it’s time to get serious about addressing unregulated stormwater. II. Stormwater in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed One of the greatest water quality challenges in the grasses, and smother aquatic life on the bottom. At the Chesapeake Bay watershed—and nationwide—is same time, the disruption of the natural water cycle can stormwater runoff from the built environment.1 Over cause what’s called urban stream syndrome, where high the past four centuries, the mid-Atlantic region has volumes and velocities of stormwater entering normally lost millions of acres of natural landscape to urban placid urban streams blow out stream banks and disrupt development. Under natural conditions, when rain or snow streambed sediment, sending dirt downstream in pollution falls, most of the water soaks into the soil or is absorbed by plumes.5 As a result, communities that rely on a clean, plants. But when the landscape is paved over and meadows sustainable Chesapeake watershed are suffering. Fisheries and forests are replaced with parking lots, streets, and have failed, taking local jobs with them.6 Drinking water buildings that are impervious to water, rain and snowmelt sources have