Golfers started calling the third hole at the Aberdeen golf course the “stink hole” ? and with good reason.
A mound of sewage sludge near the hole at Wetlands Golf Course caused quite the stench.
It also pitted family members who live next to each other in a battle that subsided, for now, when Tom Burkheimer leveled the mounds of sludge he had dumped a few hundred feet from the home of his uncle, Paul Burkheimer.
But not before three weeks of squabbling, desperate calls to City Hall and state environmental officials, complaints from residents and golfers ? and the untimely death of a cow.
The cow may have been struck by lightning, or it may have been killed by sludge.
Depends whether you believe Tom or his Uncle Paul, who says the cow should have been tested for sludge poisoning.
For his part, Tom says Paul?s making a big stink about nothing and that the sludge is being spread to grow beans and hay. The sludge is being dumped onto Wetlands-owned land by Tom?s employer, Synagro Technologies Inc., a Houston company that helps government and private agencies manage byproducts created during the water or wastewater treatment process.
“It?s free fertilizer ? that?s why we use it,” Tom said. “You should see where it was spread. You can tell where it was spread and where itwasn?t.”
The sludge piled high for three weeks, a new load packed on top every day. The spreader broke, Tom explained.
But Paul says the piles were meant to intimidate him because he has not sold his land to developers, as his brother, Bill, did, who had lived where Tom now lives.
Councilwoman Ruth Elliott got a whiff of the controversy, decided the whole mess smelled and contacted the Maryland Department of the Environment.
But she acknowledged companies that spread sludge are running out of places to do so.
At the Department of the Environment, Edward Dexter, administrator for the solid-waste program, says the sludge is safe because it is treated for pathogens.
“It?s just like any other fertilizer,” Dexter said.
Unless, of course, you live next door to piles of it.
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Bill Burkheimer sold 45 acres last year to Sam Smedley, owner of Wetlands Golf Course. But residents voted down annexation of that land to Aberdeen.
