Stormwater Law Will Mean New Maryland Jobs

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Nine Maryland counties and Baltimore City met a deadline last month to comply with a state law requiring local governments to create a stormwater maintenance fee. “Once implemented by the counties, the law will raise hundreds of millions of dollars for Bay cleanup, and will create tens of thousands of skilled jobs in Maryland for construction workers as well as landscape engineers and architects,” said Maryland Delegate Tom Hucker (photo), who co-sponsored the 2012 bill with Senator Jamie Raskin. Stormwater pollution is the fastest-growing source of pollution into the Bay. “Montgomery County serves as an example of the environmental and economic impact the legislation will have across the state,” Hucker told Union City. “When the 2012 bill was passed, the County already had a stormwater program that was compliant with the new regulations. It will spend $305 million on stormwater pollution control projects over the next 3.5 years under the program, and is expected to create 3,300 construction jobs.”  According to one recent study, “stormwater control projects could create 178,000 full time equivalent construction jobs across the region over the next five years, including 36,000 jobs in Maryland, 10,000 in the District of Columbia, 80,000 in Pennsylvania, and 52,000 in Virginia.“