The Maryland Department of the Environment will cover the roughly $10,000 cost of adding a nitrogen-removal device to septic systems, with priority given to waterfront homes. That technology would cut the pollution in half. There is funding for 600 upgrades a year. Out of 420,000 septic systems throughout the state, just 230 homeowners have used the program.
In 1999, Miller and others pushed a bill that would have required the de-nitrification systems for septics serving new homes. The measure failed amid opposition from builders and Realtors, who argued it would add too much to the cost of a new home. Since then, more than 70,000 new septic tanks have been installed in the state.
MDE officials say they don't plan to seek such legislation again. "It's our hope that there are plenty of people out there who want to do this voluntarily," said water management director Jay Sakai.
Frederick Kelly, who patrols the Severn as its "riverkeeper," believes the county and the state need to take a hard look at the septic problem. And he says that's not the only area where government is falling down on the job.
Waterfront construction continues unabated along the Severn, allowing sediment to wash into the river despite laws designed to guard against such pollution. Like algae, the chocolate-brown dirt blocks the light that bay grasses need and ultimately kills marine life.
"They're selling these houses for $1 million, and they're destroying the very attribute that makes them desirable," Kelly said. "The people will move here, and they'll realize there are no fish, no life."
The Choptank: farms
Tom Simpson steers his Chevrolet Suburban over the Kent Narrows bridge, then heads north of the U.S. 50-Route 301 split. Within a few miles, all trace of waterfront is gone, all the condos and golf courses left behind.
This is not the Eastern Shore the tourists come to see, with lighthouses and boutiques. This is Chicken Country, with long squat houses filled with thousands of growing birds behind waves of wheat.
Here, corn fields sit on one side of the winding lanes, green peas poke out of the soil on the other. It's a miniature Iowa, transplanted whole onto a ragged peninsula just a two-hour drive from Washington and Baltimore.
Simpson, who recently retired from the University of Maryland's agriculture college, has spent a lifetime wending his way through these lands. From his window, it's hard to believe something so lovely could be so destructive.
