Stormwater efforts follow 400 years of development, failed strategies

By E.B. FURGURSON III pfurgurson@capgaznews.com

Anne Arundel County’s nearly $1 billion stormwater problem probably started about 400 years ago, soon after Capt. John Smith explored the pristine Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

We have been changing the landscape ever since. The earliest settlers cut trees to clear fields for farming and get fuel and building materials. Agriculture came to dominate the landscape.

Then, as the Industrial Revolution spurred population growth, communities popped up across the landscape. Just before and after World War II, the building boom was going full tilt, and communities of modest homes replaced fertile farmland in north county — Brooklyn, Linthicum, Glen Burnie.

During the post-war years, suburbia sprawled out. The automobile drastically changed the landscape and paved roads connected neighborhoods to jobs in the city and new shopping centers with plenty of parking.

When suburbia developed, there were few if any rules governing stormwater runoff from those roofs, roadways and parking lots.

But now this long-ignored issue has come to the fore.

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