Sewage Treatment

Three incumbent Taneytown City Council members face no contest in today's city election.Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the council chambers of the city government office, 17 E. Baltimore St.The ballot will include Henry C. Heine Jr., James L. McCarron and James Wieprecht.Taneytown officials say they will work in the next four years to expand and improve the town's sewage treatment plant; eliminate leaks that have allowed raw sewage into basements during heavy rains; and revitalize the downtown business district and attract additional business and industry.

One consolation for the hot, miserable drought Maryland has endured this summer is that local waterways have been spared some of the pollution that would otherwise be washing off farms, shopping centers and city streets. Last year's heavy rain was blamed in part for earning Maryland the dubious distinction of having two beaches - Hacks Point in Cecil County and Bay Shore Campground in Kent County - among the six unhealthiest in the nation as identified by the National Resources Defense Council using federal testing data.

AS CARROLL COUNTY looks to develop the expansive corridor of open land along Route 140 from the county seat to the Baltimore County line, it will have to find the critical water and sewer facilities to service new businesses and industries.The county Industrial Land Use Committee has formed a task force to look at options for utilities development. The initial outlook is not promising for constructing a new sewage treatment plant in the area, because of its location in the protected Liberty Reservoir watershed.

The Taneytown City Council last night adopted a $1.5 million budget for fiscal 1999 that maintains the property tax rate but increases water and sewer service fees.The budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 is based on a property tax rate of 78 cents per $100 of assessed value. The plan is about $100,000 lower than the current budget.Although the property tax rate remains unchanged, increases in property assessments are expected to raise property tax revenues by $97,000, to $648,000.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney both have weekend retreats on the Chesapeake Bay at St. Michaels. Could that be why the scofflaw Pentagon has agreed to ante up its share for upgrading sewage treatment plants that drain into the bay? Whatever it took was influence well spent. A silly semantic dispute worthy of neither politicians nor lawyers was shelved in favor of a $22 million commitment by the Defense Department to clean up its act at five installations in Maryland over the next four years.

Harford County will renovate six older elementary schools, build two firehouses, seal a closed landfill and repair a Deer Creek dam in the coming fiscal year.The projects come as part of a nearly $100 million construction budget the County Council approved unanimously late Thursday night. The budget represents an estimated 50 percent increase over the current $66.3 million.But the figures could prove deceptive, as two big-ticket items that account for $50 million, the Sod Run sewage treatment plant and White ford treatment plant sewer lines, hinge on getting $12 million in federal and state grants.

The anticipated arrival of perhaps tens of thousands of workers in Maryland as part of the U.S. military's base realignment and closure plan may severely test the state's commitment to protect increasingly scarce water supplies. At issue, particularly in Harford and Cecil counties, where much of the growth is expected, are the availability of drinking water and the capacity for treating wastewater and sewage while meeting strict new pollution limits intended to reverse the degradation of the Chesapeake Bay. What's required to meet this challenge is a highly coordinated, cooperative campaign involving state, county and municipal governments to plan, share resources, protect rural areas and produce innovative tactics for conservation and water reuse.

Editor:   The editorial published March 22, in The Aegis and The Record , "A big cleanup," pointed out that the federal money recently made available to places like Havre de Grace isn't nearly enough to clean up the Bay. We agree. But the piece might have given the impression that new grants of up to $750,000 to local governments are the only outside money available to localities to help them undertake cleanup responsibilities. The editorial rightly noted that reducing agricultural pollution is especially efficient, but again implied these efforts weren't receiving much federal and state support.

SCIENTISTS say inadequately treated sewage from municipal plants along the lower Pocomoke River is not the major contributor to pollution of that tributary, now closed because of a virulent microbe that kills fish and affects human health.But these specific point-sources of polluting nutrients -- nitrogen and phosphorus -- are identified and most easily corrected. Indeed, their marginal contribution of pollutants to the river may be enough to tip the health of that degraded waterway, even if polluted runoff from farms is blamed for 80 percent of the load.

Construction of a new sewage treatment plant for Taneytown is expected to begin next month after the City Council approved a $5.7 million contract at its meeting yesterday.The contract must also be approved by the Maryland Department of the Environment before construction can begin. It was awarded to Conewago Enterprises Inc. of Hanover, Pa., the lowest of 11 bidders. Construction is scheduled to be completed by November 1999.The facility will have twice the capacity of the existing plant and will improve the water quality of the effluent that the plant discharges into Piney Creek.