Mde

The Maryland Department of the Environment plans to become the first tenant in the long-vacant Montgomery Ward warehouse in Southwest Baltimore, officials said yesterday. The state has reached an agreement to enter into a 10-year lease with Montgomery Park developers Sam Himmelrich Jr. and David F. Tufaro, relocating the MDE in the 1.3 million-square-foot building. The MDE would occupy about 20 percent of the eight-story building, at Washington Boulevard and South Monroe Street, at a cost of $3.6 million a year.

Contradicting statements made by a Maryland Department of the Environment official last week, Anne Arundel County's health officer forcefully said the agency has not consulted with her department on plans to more strictly enforce coal-ash disposal. In the latest sign of frustration among county officials that the state has shut them out of its efforts to clamp down on a Gambrills dumping site, Frances B. Phillips said Friday she learned that the MDE had formed an internal panel to weigh new rules on coal ash from Constellation Energy Group.

The Maryland Department of the Environment will accept written testimony until Feb. 25 about a request for a permit by the owners of Turf Valley Resort and Conference Center in Ellicott City to build a road that crosses the Little Patuxent River. Mangione Family Enterprises hopes to construct a street from Marriottsville Road to continue approved residential and commercial development at the 800-acre site, said Lou Mangione after a MDE public hearing on the permit last week. More than 50 neighbors attended the hearing.

Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Jane T. Nishida has agreed to meet with the Carroll County commissioners to discuss the proposed $14 million Piney Run treatment plant and other water-related issues. Nishida's long-anticipated visit will occur after MDE has twice - in letters to the commissioners - rejected Carroll's request for a construction permit to build the plant on Piney Run Lake in South Carroll. The commissioners asked for and secured a meeting with MDE early last month, then abruptly canceled, saying they needed to do more research.

Carroll County commissioners will meet this week with Maryland Department of the Environment officials to determine what - if anything - they can do to reverse the state's denial of a construction permit for a $14 million water treatment plant at Piney Run Lake in Sykesville. "I don't consider this an absolute, permanent denial," Commissioner Donald I. Dell said of the state's decision last week on the permit. For more than a year, Dell and Commissioner Robin Bartlett Frazier have been pushing for the plant, which could double the water supply in densely populated South Carroll, where water shortages have occurred for three of the past four summers.

Even though a state agency has blocked construction plans, Carroll County commissioners voted yesterday to proceed with a purchase of land easements needed for the road to the proposed water treatment plant at Piney Run Lake. The commissioners also unexpectedly postponed a meeting they had requested with Maryland Department of the Environment officials, who recently denied a construction permit for the $14 million treatment plant at the Sykesville lake. The commissioners voted 2-to-1 to proceed with the purchase of land needed to build Hollenberry Road, which would provide access to the plant.

CENTREVILLE - State environmental officials, probing allegations that millions of gallons of raw sewage were routinely dumped from an aging treatment plant here into a tributary of the Chester River, say recent water quality tests have ruled out any immediate health hazard. Samples taken from the Corsica River during the past two weeks by the Maryland Department of the Environment show that the 45-year-old facility continues to release unacceptable levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, nutrients linked to the decline of the bay. Other pollutants, such as fecal coliform, a bacteria found in human or animal waste, were within acceptable levels, said Jeffrey R. Welsh, MDE's communications director.

As lawmakers approached a critical vote on a bill designed to reduce the state's chronic air pollution, Maryland environmental Secretary Kendl P. Philbrick faxed a letter to a powerful state senator arguing against the legislation. The Maryland Department of the Environment opposed going beyond federal regulations, Philbrick's letter said, because tougher state standards would "lead to significantly higher costs" for local power plants. But the words in the March 23 letter to the Senate Finance Committee chairman, Thomas M. Middleton, were not written by Philbrick, state documents show.

Maryland's top environmental officer sought advice from Harford citizens last week on how to improve his agency's image in the county and its overall operation, acknowledging his department's reputation was tarnished."

7-Eleven Inc. is responsible for the leak of a gasoline additive that threatened Aberdeen's water supply, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. The source of methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, discovered in Aberdeen's wells two years ago was the 7-Eleven store on South Philadelphia Road, just across the highway from the city's well field, state officials said. The state's investigation found a crushed vent line in the gas station's underground tanks. Tanks are vented to allow fumes to escape into the air, where they dissipate.