Wastewater Treatment

To avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the chairman of the Carroll County Planning Commission has voluntarily ended his business involvement with a group of Lineboro residents working to replace their failing septic systems.David T. Duree, a partner in a company that had been advising the Lineboro group on the development of an alternative wastewater-treatment system, said he didn't want questions about his role as a planning commissioner to affect the project."I decided the appearances were such that it would be prudent to withdraw from the Lineboro project," said Duree, president of Innova Ltd., a consulting business that helps develop alternative wastewater systems.

A Wednesday bankruptcy filing by Synagro Technologies Inc. means growth and new jobs for the Baltimore area as the waste recycler consolidates its headquarters in White Marsh. The Carlyle Group LP-owned company, which had been co-headquartered in Baltimore and Houston, said Wednesday that it would use bankruptcy to restructure debt and sell its assets to EQT Infrastructure in a $455 million deal. The company filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization of its debts in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and said it expects the sale to be completed in two to three months.

A Wednesday bankruptcy filing by Synagro Technologies Inc. means growth and new jobs for the Baltimore area as the waste recycler consolidates its headquarters in White Marsh. The Carlyle Group LP-owned company, which had been co-headquartered in Baltimore and Houston, said Wednesday that it would use bankruptcy to restructure debt and sell its assets to EQT Infrastructure in a $455 million deal. The company filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization of its debts in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and said it expects the sale to be completed in two to three months.

Lecture series Novelist Ralph Peters will deliver the lecture, "The Price of Historical Illiteracy: Wishful Thinking and the Death of Strategy," at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at St. John's College, 60 College Ave. in Annapolis. The lecture is the first in a new joint series between St. John's College and the U.S. Naval Academy to honor the memory of Lt. Commander Erik S. Kristensen, a U.S. Navy SEAL who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. Information: stjohnscollege.edu. Flower club meets The Annapolis Horticulture Society meets at 7 p.m. Wednesday at St. Anne's Parish Hall, 199 Duke of Gloucester St. Richard Olsen of the National Arboretum speaks on "Japanese Plants and Their Appeal.

Hospitals aren't the only places where people can pick up a nasty "superbug. " A  University of Maryland -led team of researchers has found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , or MRSA, at sewage treatment plants in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. MRSA is a well-known problem in hospitals, where patients have picked up potentially fatal bacterial infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment.  But since the late 1990s, it's also been showing up in otherwise healthy people outside of health-care facilities, prompting a search for sources in the wider community.

Harford Community College is moving ahead with construction of its new wastewater treatment plant, regardless of whether it gets funding from the county for the project. Members of the college's board of trustees voted at their meeting Tuesday evening to award a contract for $3,653,172 to JLW Associates, of Leonardtown, as contractors for the construction of the school's wastewater treatment plant and associated infrastructure development. The approval carries a risk, however, as HCC is still waiting on $1.275 million in county funding.

The Maryland State Board of Public Works approved a $400,000 grant for Havre de Grace Wastewater Treatment Plant to upgrade and expand enhanced nutrient removal. "Awarding communities like Havre de Grace Enhanced Nutrient Removal [ENR] grants assure that the wastewater treatment plant will achieve critical nutrient reductions discharged into the Chesapeake Bay," said Kendl P. Philbrick, secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment. The ENR project will expand the treatment plant's capacity from 1.89 million to 2.3 million gallons per day. The grant will be used to plan, design and construct an ENR system to achieve a goal of 3 milligrams of total nitrogen per liter of treated water and to get the total phosphorus down to 0.3 milligrams per liter before discharging to the upper Chesapeake Bay. Excess nutrients lead to degraded water quality, which affects the ecology of the bay and its tributaries.

Howard County school board Vice President Stephen C. Bounds will ask his colleagues tomorrowto schedule another public meeting to air plans for a controversial wastewater treatment plant near Glenelg High School, he said yesterday.In addition, Councilman Allan H. Kittleman, a Republican who represents the western county, said he is confident the council will not vote on the proposal as part of the larger county water and sewer master plan at the next voting session, Nov. 1."It's not going forward," Kittleman said yesterday, in response to a large group of residents who appeared at the council's public hearing Monday night to complain that they got little or no notice of the project.

An attempt to settle a wastewater treatment dispute that has delayed construction of a high school addition in western Howard County failed yesterday, both sides said, setting up the issue for a state administrative hearing Nov. 7. Maryland Department of the Environment officials gave preliminary approval for a treatment plant in May, but residents appealed. Yesterday's settlement conference was an attempt to solve the dispute. The 400-seat addition to Glenelg High School originally was to have opened by last year, and officials were hoping now for a spring 2007 opening, with August 2007 as a fallback time.

A three-year, $100 million effort to cut levels of nutrients coming from Howard County's wastewater treatment plant in Savage got under way Thursday with a ceremonial groundbreaking. More than five years in the planning, the project will use waste from a nearby ice cream plant to help produce enough bacteria to sharply reduce the nitrogen being emitted with wastewater from 3,900 pounds a day now, to 830 pounds per day in 2012, when the work is completed. Reuse of some treated water will also help by diverting it from the Patuxent River.

Lawmakers and representatives of Maryland's county and municipal governments sparred Tuesday over a pair of bills in Annapolis that would raise the fines for sewage spills which annually dump millions of gallons of untreated waste into local waters and the Chesapeake Bay. One measure, SB289 , sponsored by Sen. Bryan W. Simonaire, an Anne Arundel County Republican, would boost the maximum administrative penalty for a water pollution violation from...

It's a matter no one gives a, well let's say hoot, about until there's a problem. When there is a problem with it, everyone affected will be angry enough to call city hall and give the poor soul who answers a blast of, let's just call it hot air. The matter at hand is sewage disposal and treatment, and it appears Aberdeen is at the forefront of making sure no one gets any stink on them from being cavalier about modernization. The city council voted last week to spend up to $96,000 on equipment that will make possible sewer line replacement using a technique called pipe-bursting.

Hospitals aren't the only places where people can pick up a nasty "superbug. " A  University of Maryland -led team of researchers has found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , or MRSA, at sewage treatment plants in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. MRSA is a well-known problem in hospitals, where patients have picked up potentially fatal bacterial infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment.  But since the late 1990s, it's also been showing up in otherwise healthy people outside of health-care facilities, prompting a search for sources in the wider community.

The Bay Restoration Fee, more commonly known as the "flush tax," does more than help clean up the Chesapeake Bay ("O'Malley grilled on green agenda," Feb.15). This money is used to update Maryland's wastewater and sewage treatment plants. Maryland's drinking water is put at risk when wastewater is leaked from outdated pipes and systems into our waterways. The flush tax is used to fix these leaking pipes and upgrade a system that is decades old. The sliding tax that is proposed in Gov.Martin O'Malley's legislation will help to promote water conservation.

Millions of tons of one of theChesapeake Bay'slargest sources of pollution continue to be dumped onto farm lands without proper regulation. Farm animals produce 44 million tons of manure annually in the bay watershed, and most of it is collected and disposed of on farmland - or left where it falls. This ranks the bay region in the top 10 percent in the nation for manure-related nitrogen runoff, and the problem of proper management of this waste is exacerbated by the fact that three highly concentrated animal feeding operation areas contribute more than 90 percent of the manure.

WESTMINSTER - Carroll County government and donors will host a forum on aspects of the PlanMaryland proposal Oct. 31 from noon to 5 p.m. at the Pikesville Hilton hotel, but the event won't be open to all and will charge a fee for some attendees to cover costs. A press release from the county Oct. 17 read, "To reduce costs, seating will be limited primarily to elected officials, staff, and donors. "A limited number of tickets may be provided to the public on an as available basis at a cost of $25 per ticket.

Five candidates, including two incumbents, are vying for three New Windsor Town Council seats up for grabs in the May 8 election. Incumbents Kevin Null and Steve Farkas are seeking re-election, but Councilwoman Charlotte Hollenbeck is stepping down. Town officials said candidates for the council seats were slow to file. The other three candidates include telecommunications technician F. Tracey Alban II, career firefighter Byron Welker and disc jockey and video production company owner Ed Smith.

More than $7.1 million in revenue has been collected this year from 175 owners of wastewater treatment facilities as part of the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced today. "The revenue from this historic effort is enabling us to make future generations proud to call Maryland home of the Chesapeake Bay," Ehrlich said in a statement. "I applaud Comptroller Schaefer and the state comptroller office's work with the Maryland Department of the Environment for getting this program up and running so quickly."

Harford Community College is moving ahead with construction of its new wastewater treatment plant, regardless of whether it gets funding from the county for the project. Members of the college's board of trustees voted at their meeting Tuesday evening to award a contract for $3,653,172 to JLW Associates, of Leonardtown, as contractors for the construction of the school's wastewater treatment plant and associated infrastructure development. The approval carries a risk, however, as HCC is still waiting on $1.275 million in county funding.