On Wednesday, the Board of Public Works approved $15 million in grants to Baltimore City for the upgrading of two major sewage treatment plants that will cut nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay by 4 million pounds a year, more than halfway to a state goal for reducing nutrients.
“Today is a report card on where we are” under the Bay Restoration Program, said Gov. Robert Ehrlich. The grants are financed by the so-called flush tax on sewage use and septic systems, which has raised $76 million to improve 66 plants in Maryland.
The city-owned Back River and Patapsco plants process much of the sewage for the metropolitan area. An $8 million grant went to the City of Brunswick in Frederick County for its plant.
“We?re making great progress in this program,” said Environment Secretary Kendl Philbrick.
When the huge Blue Plains treatment plan in the District of Columbia is upgraded, with 40 percent of the costs paid by Maryland for its residents? sewage, the state will have dealt with 90 percent of the origin of nitrogen it sends into the Bay, said Robert Summers, head of water management.
“There?s a lot of uncertainty” about Blue Plains because it is so large, and cost estimates are difficult, Summers said, but “I?m optimistic.”
D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams “has been great to work with,” Ehrlich said.
Summers said that the upgrades at Back River and Patapsco are now expected to reduce nitrogen by 25 percent more than originally estimated.
“We still have 2010 thresholds to meet,” which are even more stringent, Ehrlich said. “We have to be ahead of the game.”
Treasurer Nancy Kopp, one of the three-member board that approved the new grants, said, “It wouldn?t work without coherent statewide planning” and the ability to measure the progress made over time.
