Sewage Treatment

At Historic London Town and Gardens, the Colonial seaport outside Annapolis, even the new building isn't entirely new. It's mostly an abandoned sewage treatment plant. Within weeks, construction of the $5.1 million visitor center-museum-archaeology lab will be nearly finished, with most of the work done below ground - turning what used to be a concrete vault nobody wanted to talk about into a place officials hope will be a hub of discussion. "It just breaks my heart when I see these sewage treatment plants going to waste all over the country," said the man who conceived of building in the plant, Jack Keene, chief of planning and construction for the Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks.

OUR GOVERNMENT'S record has not engendered much trust when it comes to saving the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers. Very few affordable, science-based solutions to pollution problems have been implemented, despite their availability. And time is running out. Five years ago yesterday, state and federal leaders who served on the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council ratified the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement (C2K). The overarching promise of C2K is to improve water quality to rid the bay and its rivers of persistent dead zones by 2010.

Environmental Protection Agency officials said yesterday that they would not adopt the recommendations outlined in a recent lawsuit aiming to protect the Chesapeake Bay from sewage pollution, arguing that the agency is doing enough to combat water-quality problems. The lawsuit, which the Chesapeake Bay Foundation filed in November, sought to force the Bush administration to place discharge limits on sewage treatment plants, which dump large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the bay and its tributaries.

CENTREVILLE -- State environmental regulators say traces of a banned pesticide found in soil, water and sediment samples taken at an abandoned Eastern Shore dump near here are within acceptable standards and pose no threat to public health or groundwater. The tests, conducted by an independent laboratory, were ordered by the Maryland Department of the Environment last month after rusted barrels that once contained the chemical Toxaphene were found in a wooded ravine adjacent to a 300-acre spray irrigation field that is part of Centreville's new wastewater treatment system.

Owners of a Carroll County plant want to burn more than 100 tons a day of dried, sanitized sewage from Baltimore's wastewater facilities to make cement, a proposal that the company insists is safe but that has raised concerns from residents. Lehigh Cement Co. is proposing to use the pelletized sludge - known as a "biosolid" - as an alternative or supplement to the coal it burns in kilns at its factory in Union Bridge, in Western Carroll. Lehigh, which is based in Allentown, Pa., has asked Carroll County for zoning approval to build two 130-foot silos, one of which would store as much as 400 tons of biosolids.

The Carroll County commissioners have signed an agreement that would provide sewer service for Francis Scott Key High School, but complained about the terms demanded by the town of Union Bridge, where the sewage treatment plant is located. Union Bridge has yet to sign the agreement - and the commissioners' addition of a last-minute $7,000 limit on legal and consulting fees could delay or defeat it when the Town Council meets tonight, said Union Bridge Mayor Bret D. Grossnickle. Commissioner Dean L. Minnich said the town took advantage of having the county over the proverbial barrel.

The Carroll County commissioners have signed an agreement that would provide sewer service for Francis Scott Key High School, but complained about the terms demanded by the town of Union Bridge, where the sewage treatment plant is located. Union Bridge has yet to sign the agreement - and the commissioners' addition of a last-minute $7,000 limit on legal and consulting fees could delay or defeat it when the Town Council meets tonight, said Union Bridge Mayor Bret D. Grossnickle. Commissioner Dean L. Minnich said the town took advantage of having the county over the proverbial barrel.

MOUNT VERNON, Va. -- The governors of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania vowed yesterday to develop a regional financing authority to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay and seek more federal funding to get the job done. The joint announcement came after a closed meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council, a group of governors from the three states, the mayor of the District of Columbia and federal environmental officials that develops goals across the bay watershed. It follows the recommendations of a panel of finance and legal experts, headed by former Virginia Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, which estimated late last year that the bay restoration effort would need a $15 billion infusion of state and federal funds to achieve real progress.

Wastewater treatment plants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed will have to comply with new pollution limits under a new Environmental Protection Agency policy. The agency announced yesterday that it has reached an agreement in which the six watershed states and the District of Columbia will set limits for the discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus in local waterways. States, which issue the permits, will work with the EPA to make sure they are enforced. "It's a milestone. I think it's unprecedented," said Jon Capacasa, director of the water protection division for the EPA's mid-Atlantic region.