Sewer System

More than six months after the city was ordered to improve its antiquated water and sewer system, Taneytown has received a $450,000 state grant to help pay for a $4 million waste-water treatment plant expansion.The 40-year-old system has been blamed for a series of incidents after heavy rains last year in which raw sewage backed up into the basements of homes and untreated waste water flowed through drainage ditches.In November, Taneytown officials signed an agreement with the Maryland Department of the Environment, promising to improvethe system by 1999.

The Harford County public and municipal elected officials in Aberdeen, Bel Air and Havre de Grace need to pay particularly close attention three bills on water and sewer issues that are scheduled for hearings before the Harford County Council this Tuesday, March 13, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Though the bills to some degree reflect a move in the general direction of a unified water system for the county, the question whether the county needs such...

Faced with the failure of more than a quarter of the septic systems in two northern Carroll communities, the county Health Department has recommended construction of a public sewer system. Edwin Singer, director of the county's environmental health division, called the 27 percent failure rate high - the average is about 3 percent. More than 70 percent of the homes in Union Mills and Silver Run were built on small lots with no space to build replacement systems. "Our recommendation is based on the public health implications and our survey," Singer said at a public meeting with about 60 residents Monday night.

There has been a lot of discussion and controversy in the Maryland General Assembly and in the counties about growth-related strategies. Some say they take away private rights; others, that these strategies save money and protect our water. Since we all want to have clean water and save on government expenditures, why not support smart growth initiatives? There is an effort to do this through bills in the legislature, House Bill 445 and Senate Bill 236. Both these measures call for managing growth by limiting sprawl development.

Baltimore will spend $475,000 to study its aging sewer system, which has caused more than 16 million gallons of raw sewage to be dumped into waterways over the past five months. With legal pressure building from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the Environment, the city Board of Estimates unanimously agreed yesterday to an emergency spending request to hire engineers to examine ways to upgrade and maintain the system. The board approved a contract with Metcalf and Eddy Services of Baltimore to inspect and determine priorities for repairs to the 3,100-mile system.

Baltimore County has tentatively agreed to make more than $800 million in repairs and improvements to its aging sewer system and to pay a $750,000 fine for past sewage spills under a proposed settlement with state and federal environmental agencies and the Department of Justice. The consent decree, scheduled for discussion at Tuesday's County Council work session, would require county officials to not only fix and upgrade the system - a network of 3,000 miles of sewer lines and 111 pumping stations that handle about 40 billion gallons a year -but to look for potential problems before they occur.

About 22,000 gallons of untreated sewage was dumped into the Jones Falls at 3300 Clipper Mill Road on Wednesday and early yesterday morning after a sewer line broke. The overflow came as the city's Department of Public Works works on a $900 million upgrade of the sewer system. In 2002, Baltimore officials signed a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate overflows. A city spokesman said the overflow occurred on a sewer line that is being replaced and was contained by 3:30 a.m. yesterday.

The Harford County public and municipal elected officials in Aberdeen, Bel Air and Havre de Grace need to pay particularly close attention three bills on water and sewer issues that are scheduled for hearings before the Harford County Council this Tuesday, March 13, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Though the bills to some degree reflect a move in the general direction of a unified water system for the county, the question whether the county needs such...

Baltimore County officials plan to impose a moratorium on sewer hook-ups to shut the door to new development in the environmentally sensitive Bowleys Quarters and Back River Neck peninsulas.County officials say the moratorium, to be introduced as a bill at tonight's County Council meeting, is needed to curb growth on the two peninsulas, where a sewer system is being built to replace failing septic systems.The moratorium would prohibit building on 1,100 lots along the two peninsulas.The sewer system was intended to serve only the 1,200 existing homes, but has the capacity to serve twice that number, said Michael H. Davis, a spokesman for County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger.

"Capture a Lake Bonnie memory," the flier reads. Tucked away "in the heart of the Eastern Shore," the wooded campground in northern Caroline County offered swimming, fishing and boat rentals on a 28-acre man-made lake. It was, says owner Gail Litz, a "home away from home" for dozens of families, many from Baltimore. Memories are all that's left now of Lake Bonnie Campsites. The lake, the heart of the campground, was declared unfit for swimming or wading in 1996 because of sewage leaking from failing septic systems in Goldsboro, about a mile away.

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.

"Capture a Lake Bonnie memory," the flier reads. Tucked away "in the heart of the Eastern Shore," the wooded campground in northern Caroline County offered swimming, fishing and boat rentals on a 28-acre man-made lake. It was, says owner Gail Litz, a "home away from home" for dozens of families, many from Baltimore. Memories are all that's left now of Lake Bonnie Campsites. The lake, the heart of the campground, was declared unfit for swimming or wading in 1996 because of sewage leaking from failing septic systems in Goldsboro, about a mile away.

Baltimore recently had to shut down Lombard Street downtown due to a large diameter water main break snarling traffic throughout the downtown area. East Monument Street was shut down because of a sewer collapse. Perhaps a year or so back, Linwood Avenue in Canton shut down first at Fleet Street and later at Foster Avenue due to water main breaks causing the collapse of the intersections. And these are just the recent problems. The Inner Harbor, our city's lifeline to the tourism industry, brings a much needed stream of economic life to a place where a seemingly endless stream of trash flushed from storm drains floats into the harbor.

The chance to live in what was billed as the county's only gated golf course community for seniors drew eager buyers to bucolic Glenwood over the past five years. But a lawsuit filed by the county government claims that the developers and builders of the Villas at Cattail Creek misled homebuyers about many aspects of the project. The suit accuses developers Donald Reuwer Jr. and J. Thomas Scrivener, along with NVR Inc., owner of the builder, Ryan Homes, of deceiving buyers for years. The allegations laid out range from the gate at the entrance, which the county said still doesn't work, to an unbuilt golf course, to a water and sewer system that even the developers acknowledge never functioned properly.

Wastewater overflows from sewer systems into Maryland's rivers and streams have fallen to their lowest point since 2001, thanks in large part to this year's drought. A total 24.2 million gallons of untreated sewage had spewed from sanitary sewer systems through September, according to a Capital News Service analysis of Maryland Department of the Environment data. That is 79 percent below the January-to-September average going back to 2001, the year the MDE began providing data on overflows.

When Baltimore County decided to build a sewer line through their yard, James and Debbie Schneider knew there would be noise and dust. The peach trees would be knocked down and the grass torn up. But then, the Essex couple says, the crews bulldozed the kids' pool and the brick outdoor grill, built a 20-foot mountain of smelly sludge and parked a large crane next door. James Schneider warned the county not to get too close to the home's septic system. The crew accidentally destroyed it. The project was supposed to take a year.

Residents of the Cranberry section in Westminster applauded yesterday the county's long-delayed decision to extend public sewer service to their neighborhood.The $570,000 plan is designed to solve years of health and environmental problems caused by leaky, failed septic systems."The stream that flows behind my house has become so !B contaminated that nothing lives in it," Lester Stem, a lifelong Cranberry resident, told the County Commissioners during a public hearing on the plan yesterday afternoon.

About 22,000 gallons of untreated sewage was dumped into the Jones Falls at 3300 Clipper Mill Road on Wednesday and early yesterday morning after a sewer line broke. The overflow came as the city's Department of Public Works works on a $900 million upgrade of the sewer system. In 2002, Baltimore officials signed a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate overflows. A city spokesman said the overflow occurred on a sewer line that is being replaced and was contained by 3:30 a.m. yesterday.

Havre de Grace has experienced a rebirth of sorts in recent years, with new homes springing up near its revived waterfront promenade-Main Street corridor and with developers erecting thousands of offices and homes around Bulle Rock, a six-year-old golf course that has gained a reputation as one of the best public facilities in the nation. But one city councilman thinks the city may need to slow things down, at least for six months. Concerned that the city's water and sewer systems are approaching capacity, City Councilman Wayne Dougherty has been floating the idea of a six-month moratorium on new development.