Invited to provide guidance and expertise to the Commission regarding their proposed new Master Plan and issues of water quality, stream buffers, and restoration.

1. Andrew T. Der | Associate & Director of Environmental Services
801 South Caroline Street | Baltimore, MD 21231 | 443.224.1824 | ader@wrallp.com
E N V I R O N M E NTAL
Issues & Strategies
Presented February 8, 2012 to:
Charles County Commissioners/Planning Commission Comprehensive
Plan Process Expert Panel

2. Background & Expertise
• Mr. Der has 30 years of experience in water resources regulation as a scientist, administrator and
consultant providing expertise to public and private sector clients.
• 20 years of practice in Charles County – 10 years as consultant - and currently under open-ended
on-call contract for environmental consulting services for Charles County Planning and Growth
Management for last 8 years.
• Specialties include: water quality assessment, watershed studies, wetlands, mitigation, stream
restoration, NEPA studies, NPDES, permitting, environmental site design (ESD), erosion and
sediment control, and compliance.
• Currently Associate and Director of Environmental Services for WRA; previously in private
consulting practice as principal of Andrew T. Der & Associates, LLC; previously eight years as
Associate & Director of Environmental Services for Loiederman Soltesz Associates, Inc. ;
previously 17 years of service at the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE).
• Member of Chesapeake Bay Governor’s Citizen’s Advisory for the Chesapeake Bay Program;
member of the Executive’s Montgomery County Forest Conservation Advisory Committee; member
of the Environmental Committee, Maryland National Capital Building Industry Association.
• Contribute to ad hoc workgroups, published deliberative and technical papers and articles, media
interview contact, provided expert testimony, and conduct continuing education seminars.

3. Example Projects
• Acton Lane • MTA Waldorf Park and Ride
• Bryan’s Road Sewer • St. Charles Communities
• Billingsley Road • Cross County Connector
• Cross County Connector • Southern Maryland Stadium
• Middletown Road • Rosewick Road
• Post Office Road • Various development projects
• Waldorf Marketplace • Various watershed assessments
including mitigation and NPDES
retrofit evaluations
• Western Parkway

4. Company Resources
• Whitman, Requardt & Associates, LLP (WR&A) is a multi-discipline
architecture, engineering, planning, and construction management firm
operating out of the mid-Atlantic region for 95 years.
• Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland with twelve branch offices. Services
focus on the needs of government, private, academic, institutional, and
industrial clients combining a wealth of diverse capabilities to complete
projects of all sizes, complexities, and durations to the absolute satisfaction of
our clients.
• WR&A’s staff of 575 professionals offer extensive experience in the planning,
design, permitting and approvals, construction phase services, cost
estimates, and post construction activities required for a successful project,
and take great pride that WR&A has been recognized as a Top 128
Engineering Design Firm in the Country by Engineering News Record.

5. Company Resources
Newly evolving environmental and water resource criteria present new challenges
of cost effective and achievable planning and compliance. WR&A’s watershed-
based environmental team has the contemporary resources and multi-disciplined
experts including watershed planners, biologists, environmental scientists, water
resource engineers, and technicians.
• Ongoing collaborative relationships with key decisions makers in all levels of local, state, and
federal government.
• Vast expertise and experience in water resource regulation, permitting and compliance, and
can extract maximum benefits and credits from all types of retrofits, mitigation, reforestation,
and restoration.
• Leading members in numerous industry and legislative committees involved in the forefront of
current regulatory criteria as it is changing rapidly.
• Diversity and reliability of a leading mid-Atlantic firm with a hundred year track record of
customer service in all manner of civil engineering.
• Tailor the effort needed to fit the goal whether it is a desktop study or a more involved
approach culminating in a site level plan.
• Prepared to think outside the box and recommend innovative and cutting edge strategies to
achieve the most cost-effective yet complaint outcome.

6. Company Resources
Our clients have grown to rely on the highest caliber of expertise,
which WR&A offers in the following areas:
• Architectural
• Civil Engineering
• Community and Land Use Planning
• Construction Management & Inspection
• Environmental Planning & Permitting
• Geotechnical Engineering
• Geology
• Highway Engineering
• Hydrology/Hydraulic Engineering
• Mapping/GIS/Surveying/Right of Way
• Marine Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Public Involvement
• Strategic Planning and Visioning
• Structural Engineering
• Traffic Engineering & Analysis
• Transportation Planning
• Transit/Railroad Engineering
• Water Resources Engineering
• Water and Wastewater Engineering

7. Planning Level Efforts
Three Primary environmental tools at planning or “desktop” level:
• Development Density
• Impervious Surface Criteria
• Setback Buffering
Good tools in our tool box – but, we must have a Tool Box. It should include:
ground-truthing, utilizing existing data to calibrate technical assumptions, and
synergy with existing regulatory programs and mandates. Critical points:
• Does this effectively address the primary water quality issues and sources?
• How effective are they at the desktop versus site level?
• Are we compatible with, and building on, the regulatory requirements and criteria
already in place while reducing duplicative efforts?
• Is the planning process based on sound technical assumptions and allow for
natural resource variation and character on the site-level?
• How do we get the most “bang for the buck”?

8. Improving Overall Plan
The Plan should interface effectively with, and account for, current existing studies, requirements
and mandates which already can identify more specific planning strategies – and allow for a means
to address opportunities to improve and restore existing water quality problems.
• TMDL WIP ( and LimnoTech Load Reduction Strategies)
• NPDES MS4 Permit
• SHA TMDL compliance – going onto county lands, 301 Corridor Study
• Draft 2011 Water Resources Element amendment to 2006 Comprehensive Plan
• SWM ESD to the MEP “woods in good condition” for new construction
• New MDE E/S regulations for new construction
• NPDES Construction Permit for new construction
• Forest Conservation law & RPZ for new construction – identify forest buffers
• MDE/Corps Wetland and Waterway Permitting with associated buffers for new
construction
• MDE Tier II criteria
• Critical Area Criteria for new construction
• Green Infrastructure Study
• MDE Stream Corridor Assessment Survey for the Port Tobacco River Watershed,
Charles County, Maryland
• MDE Port Tobacco River Watershed Characterization
• DNR/CWP Port Tobacco River Watershed Restoration Action Strategy
• U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Mattawoman Watershed Study

9. Improving the Overall Quality of the Plan
• Allow site-level variations of criteria at the individual project review level to
consider factors such as pre-existing land use, and natural character (soils,
slopes, vegetation, hydrology). Utilize existing Forest Stand Delineation plan
for first of three SWM plan submittals.
• Depending on outcome and proposed land use change, maximize incentives
to restore and mitigate older existing problems. Coordinate with the County’s
existing and projected NPDES MS4 restoration projects as well as any already
required for mitigation for permitted projects. Any excess can be banked for
future trading opportunities to satisfy WIP goals.
• Verify technical assumptions and allow for evolving strategies. Process is not
static and neither should be any planning tool. Models are being revised and
depending on site-specific characteristics and pre-existing conditions,
“traditional” desktop impervious surface and buffer criteria applied to new
construction today may or may not provide the most cost-effective or
practicable approach to cleaning up older sources.

10. Does the Comprehensive Plan
Build on What We Know?

11. How Can We Use Some
of the Data We Have?

12. How Do We Get the Most “Bang for the Buck”?
Developed Lands – new construction
• SWM ESD to the MEP “woods in good condition”
• New MDE E/S regulations
• NPDES Construction Permit
• Forest Conservation law & RPZ – identify forest buffers
• MDE/Corps Wetland and Waterway Permitting with
associated buffers
• MDE Tier II criteria
• Critical Area Criteria
Developed Lands – older existing development
• NPDES MS4 Permit
The Rest
• TMDL WIP
• SHA TMDL
• Ag water quality plans
• WWTP and Septic upgrades
• Draft 2011 Water Resources Element amendment to
2006 Comprehensive Plan

13. What Other Types of Data are Out There?
• Green Infrastructure Study - 2002
Land Use
• MDE Stream Corridor
Assessment Survey for the Port
Tobacco River Watershed,
Charles County, Maryland
• MDE Port Tobacco River
Watershed Characterization
• DNR/CWP Port Tobacco River
Watershed Restoration Action
Strategy
• U. S. Army Corps of Engineers
Mattawoman Watershed Study

14. How Can Buffers be an Effective Planning Tool?

15. Re-establishing Buffers and Stream/SWM
Retrofits as a Priority

16. Get a Bigger Piece of the Nutrient Pie –
Re-establish Buffers on Cleared Land

17. Unstable Streams Major Sediment
Source = Restoration Incentives

18. Unstable Streams Major Sediment
Source = Restoration Incentives

19. Stream Stabilization Versus
Expanded Buffers

20. Andrew T. Der | Associate & Director of Environmental Services
801 South Caroline Street | Baltimore, MD 21231 | 443.224.1824 | ader@wrallp.com
E N V I R O N M E NTAL
Issues &Strategies
Presented February 8, 2012 to:
Charles County Commissioners/Planning Commission Comprehensive
Plan Process Expert Panel