Sewage

Feel like the streets are a little too bumpy for your taste? Or maybe your property tax bill is higher than you like. And what about the parks in your community - are they up to snuff? Or, maybe you feel like all these things are being managed better than ever before and it would be a shame for that to change. Either way, if you live in the town of Bel Air or the City of Aberdeen, this Tuesday is your chance to be heard with regard to how your local government is being run. In Aberdeen, only incumbent city council members are on the ballot, as no one decided to run a challenging campaign for those four seats, but the mayor's race is rather hotly contested.

A blockage in a 12-inch sewer main caused 1.16 million gallons of sewage to overflow into a tributary of Herring Run, according to a statement Wednesday by the Baltimore County Department of Public Works. The sewer line is in the Anneslie-Idlewylde area near the border of Baltimore and Baltimore County, DPW said. The overflow occurred Oct. 12 but was not discovered until Tuesday after an odor complaint was investigated, according to the statement. The line was cleared around 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Baltimore County utility crews dealt with yet another sewage spill at the Patapsco Sewage Pumping Station in Baltimore Highlands. About 525,000 gallons of sewage spilled from a 54-inch concrete pipe Saturday into the lower Patapsco River. The county spent $500,000 to replace aging pipes earlier this month after a main conduit ruptured in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and poured about 100 million gallons of raw sewage into the river over the course of a week. Crews discovered a joint failure in the new piping last week and the overflow occurred during the ensuing repair for a few hours early Saturday morning.

A large volume of sewage, which could be approaching 1 million gallons, spilled into a Southeast Baltimore creek throughout Thursday, said a Department of Public Works official. The overflow started about 8 a.m., coming from a pipe that leads to an underground vault in the 2200 block of Broening Highway and flowing into Colgate Creek, said DPW spokeswoman Celeste Amato. Public Works is working to re-route the sewage flow until the spillage stops, she said. When flow levels decrease enough, the department will be able to diagnose the cause of the overflow and provide a final estimate of the total spill volume.

The Harford County Department of Public Works has reported an overflow of 263,000 gallons of raw, partially-treated sewage occurred during the height of Hurricane Irene last weekend. Some, if not all, of the discharge probably reached the nearby waters of Bush River, the county said Friday. But a county public works official also says the impact from the "torrential" rain from Irene late Saturday and early Sunday could have been a lot worse on the county's sewage collection system.

Hurricane Irene did more than topple trees and turn out the lights across the Baltimore area. The storm left behind some nasty, stinky reminders of its fury, as sewage spills forced beach closures and triggered warnings to stay away from the water as summer draws to a close. The worst problem came in the Baltimore Highlands area southwest of the city, where a ruptured sewer main has poured about 100 million gallons of raw sewage into the lower Patapsco River over the past week. Power outages also led to more than a dozen other sewage spills across the region.

A pipeline carrying raw sewage from a western Baltimore County pumping station to a treatment plant in the city has spilled more than 70 million gallons into the Patapsco River since it ruptured over the weekend. The county said the breach, reported late Sunday, would be repaired by Friday at a cost of about $250,000. A neighbor of the Patapsco Pumping Station on Old Annapolis Road in Baltimore Highlands reported the spill soon after it occurred, officials said. Baltimore County hired Spiniello Companies, Inc., a concrete contractor, to replace the 54-inch concrete pipe and another smaller pipe was found to be damaged.

An estimated 2.4 million gallons of sewage overflowed Sunday afternoon into the Back River in Essex, the Department of Public Works said Tuesday in a statement. The waterfront at Rocky Point, Cox's Point and Edgemere Park was posted with overflow notices by Baltimore County. The overflow, largely attributable to heavy rainfall, lasted from about 12:20 p.m. until about 2:00 p.m. A large volume of rain water in the sewer lines increased beyond normal levels the amount of sewage coming into the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Baltimore County, according to the department.

A Cambridge country club was ordered to pay an "extraordinary penalty" of $500,000 by a Dorchester County Circuit Court for discharging raw sewage into wetlands along the Choptank River that eventually flow into the Chesapeake Bay, according to a Thursday announcement from the state attorney general's office. BSJ Partners LLC, owner-operator of Clearview at Horn's Point, formerly known as the Cambridge Country Club, was ordered to pay a $485,000 civil penalty for environmental violations, a $15,000 penalty for failing to submit discharge monitoring reports for three years; and a $500 penalty for discovery violations.

State officials looking to clean up the Chesapeake Bay are weighing a series of new restrictions on how and when farmers can fertilize their fields — and on when municipal sewage treatment plants can spread their sludge on farmland. Draft regulations drawn up by the Maryland Department of Agriculture are drawing fire from farmers and local officials, who say the limits being proposed are onerous, costly and unwarranted. But one scientist said they are backed by research and needed to reduce the pollution fouling the bay. The rules, which have yet to be formally proposed, would, among other things, curtail the practice of fertilizing grain crops that are planted in the fall.