Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) stopped by the College Park Council Chambers Thursday morning to talk about S.3481, a freshly passed piece of legislation that requires state and local governments to work together to mitigate pollution caused by stormwater runoff.

More specifically, the federal government is now required to pay municipalities stormwater fees needed to treat stormwater runoff from federally owned land -- the same fees that private landowners are required to pay.

"If you're going to get cooperation from landowners, that cooperation is going to be much more effective if they know the federal government is also subjecting itself as a landowner to the same conditions," Cardin said. Considering around three percent of Maryland's land and five percent of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed is owned by the federal government, this legislation will make a significant difference in reducing water pollution, Cardin said.

Though the scope of the discussion extended well beyond College Park's borders, College Park has a particular commitment to this issue -- Mayor Andrew Fellows is Clean Water Actions's Chesapeake Regional Director, meaning his day job is dedicated to ensuring that clean water practices are implemented around the region. Patch caught up with Fellows and asked about the effectiveness of College Park's stormwater management system, and how this new legislation will impact us:

Patch: In what ways have you applied your water expertise to College Park?

Mayor Fellows: Fortunately, College Park has a long history of showing concern for this. During my six years on the council, my colleagues - including Eric Olson (D-Dist. 3)  who is now on the County Council - made a strong effort to work with developers to reduce the stormwater impact as much as possible. The city of College Park also engaged with the county and University of Maryland in the Paint Branch Partnership, to work to stabilize the Paint Branch stream. Now there's over $100,000 being put into stabilizing the Paint Branch. We also have a commitment to work with the county toward developing rain gardens wherever possible. They mentioned one that was actually where the parking garage is now. But we also have a rain garden by Duvall Field. College Park was incorporated in 1945, so being a really old community, a lot of the stormwater management we have is really old designs that don’t really adequately protect the rainwater.

Patch: What will change with this legislation?

MF: The reason this is such a great victory ... is that there’s a lot more money, maybe most importantly for the District of Columbia, but also for Prince George’s County, to help with stormwater ... and to go into projects that need restoration. Let’s say a developer comes in and says “Well, we can do a certain amount, but we need some help from the county.” This fund can be used to go for those matching funds. So there are all sorts of projects in the ground that restore or protect water.

Patch: What would you like to see happen here in the next year?

MF: Probably the most important thing locally is Prince George’s County's opportunity to strengthen their NS4 – National Separated Stormwater Sewer Systems. There’s a new permit that’s going to be issued in the coming year, so we can have a really strong permit, which would require developers and municipalities and the county, to come up with standards that are really strong. Usually in those kind of permits ... there’s flexibility, and developers do the best they can, and if they can’t do it all the way, there’s usually some sort of mitigation fund. So that’s the most important thing they can do this year -- strong county legislation.