The Maryland Senate is poised to delay the implementation of a statewide ban on dishwasher detergent containing polluting phosphorus that seeps into the Chesapeake Bay, in response to objections from consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, which said it cannot meet the original deadline.
Senators gave preliminary approval yesterday to legislation that would push back the ban's implementation by six months, to July 2010. The change would come one year after the General Assembly passed the ban on nearly all phosphorus in the detergents, which environmentalists say are discharged into the bay through sewers and other avenues, and contribute to algae blooms, fish kills and dead zones.
Environmentalists and some lawmakers decried the proposed delay. Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat, said that moving back the deadline for complying with the law would lead to an additional 7.5 tons of phosphorus ending up in the bay. He called the legislation a "license to pollute."
"What we're doing here is saying to Procter & Gamble, `You can back your truck up to the Chesapeake Bay and dump 7.5 tons of additional phosphorus into it,'" Frosh said.
But proponents said the legislation is a reasonable concession to the detergent industry, which fought the ban last year by arguing that phosphorus-free detergents don't get dishes and silverware as clean. Companies including Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser, a British supplier of household goods, told lawmakers they would not be able to roll out a substitute in time.
Procter & Gamble, which has a cosmetics manufacturing plant in Hunt Valley, makes Cascade dishwasher detergent. Reckitt Benckiser makes Electrasol detergent.
Reckitt Benckiser spokesman Tony Brand said phosphates are "extremely effective" as a water softener "and the removal of phosphates could impact the overall performance of the product." He noted that the industry has voluntarily agreed to decrease phosphate content in detergent to less than 0.5 percent - the threshold required in Maryland law - by July 2010.
"We are currently evaluating options to maintain the same high quality our customers have come to expect from Electrasol while meeting the industry's commitment," he said.
Washington was the first state to pass a phosphorus ban two years ago, and several states, including Maryland, followed suit. According to the Soap and Detergent Association, a Washington-based trade group, all of the states except Maryland made their bans effective in July 2010.
