The Chesapeake Bay TMDL's Potential Impacts on Builders and Developers
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The draft Chesapeake Bay TMDL -which extends over portions of six states and Washington, DC, an area of 64,000 square miles, a total of 92 watersheds, and 17 million inhabitants -was published on September 24, 2010, and was available for review and public comment through November 8, 2010. The EPA’s stated plan is to produce a final TMDL by the end of 2010. Because the TMDL is being held out as a potential model in the formation of other TMDL's and nutrient reduction programs, and because the Chesapeake Bay TMDL will have a significant impact on the building industry, it's helpful for us to know what is being said about the draft TMDL via the public comments submitted to EPA.
The comment submitted by NAHB, the National Association of Home Builders, makes some excellent points specifically about the TMDL's impact on builders and developers. Here are a few excepts from its comment dated November 8th, 2010 (the complete version of NAHB's public comment is available here as a pdf on www.regulations.gov):
- The Chesapeake Bay TMDL's requirements will become a part of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits issued for controlling the stormwater discharges from construction sites, and will therefore become a part of the stormwater permits issued for homebuilding projects in the Bay watershed.
- EPA intends to hold states, municipalities, NPDES permit holders, and citizens responsible if the states do not live up to EPA's visions of compliance.
- The stringency of the new pollutant reduction requirements will significantly strain the already challenged state and local government budgets and may simply be unaffordable for the states and localities covered by the rule.
If local governments and municipalities cannot afford the costs associated with the TMDL - who is going to pay?
NAHB alleges that: The costs of the TMDL will be borne by the construction industry in the form of land, planning, and carrying costs; installation and maintenance of BMPs; and, in affected states that have no pollutant allocation set aside for future growth, the requirement to offset all pollutant loadings from new construction activities. These will ultimately be felt in the market as a combination of higher prices and lower output for the construction industry. As output declines and jobs are lost in the construction industry, other sectors of the economy that buy from or sell to the construction industry will also contract and lose jobs. Builders and developers already are being crippled by the economic downturn and the ability of the home-buying public to absorb significant new costs and the TMDL will further exacerbate these challenges. Further, because compliance costs are incurred prior to the home sales, builders and developers will be required to pay carrying costs, which add additional cost to projects.
- Page 17 of the NAHB's comment on EPA-R03-OW-2010-0736.
These are troubling allegations for the building industry. It will be interesting to see if EPA responds to these and other points relating to inconsistencies in modeling in the final version of the TMDL.
Interested to see what other industry and agricultural sectors had to say? The complete set of public comments is available here, on the regulations.gov website.
