Officials are looking into the environmental effects of a sewage spill near Aberdeen Proving Ground over the weekend, marking the fourth time since July the base?s water treatment system has released partially treated water into the Bay.
A surge of rainwater and sewage pushed the water-treatment plant at the Edgewood section of APG past its 5 million gallon capacity Saturday morning, leadingthe system to discharge approximately 66,600 gallons of partially treated wastewater into the adjacent Bush River, said base spokesman George Mercer.
The system had suffered three much larger discharges in July, releasing approximately 1.45 million gallons of untreated or partially treated waste into the river July 6, 15 and 23. After those incidents, the Maryland Department of the Environment went through the treatment plant and made recommendations for upgrading its capacity, said Susan Kelly, director of Environmental Health for the Harford County health department.
“It?s an old system,” Mercer said. “We?ve done a lot of upgrades and additions, but we haven?t got the funding for more capacity.”
“We hope APG, with the help of the [Maryland Department of the Environment], effects some upgrades. … It certainly is an unacceptable situation with these bypasses,” Kelly said.
Though the spills have been large, the amount of actual waste in the discharges is diluted by the partial treatment and the surge of rainwater that causes the overflows, she said.
“If we?re talking about an individual spill that is an isolated incident, I don?t think it will have much of an impact,” said Jenn Aiosa, a scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “When you think of [a spill] in terms of the cumulative … especially when we start seeing more and more of these spills, we need to start asking questions.”
“We are still reviewing what happened,” said Robert Ballinger, spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment.
Ballinger said the MDE is working alongside the Health Department to determine the cause of the spill.
Once the cause is determined, the MDE will work with Aberdeen Proving Ground and the health department to determine how to best prevent another spill.
“We?re not ready to look at any sort of fines,” Ballinger said. “Our first priority is to see to the needs of the community.”
