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Stormwater, sewage, sediment, and train derailments
Yesterday the city of Baltimore experienced a severe wet weather event that resulted in flood warnings throughout the DMV area, coupled with a water main break downtown. While the water main break is responsible for the day’s increase in train delays and a strong flow of murky brown water into the inner harbor near Howard and Pratt, an infrastructure failure may not be necessary for the same problem to occur in the near future. Can you report that the brown water was sediment and not human waste in the inner harbor. — Craig “Sunsun” Allen (@just2muchfunfun) July 9, 2019 One of the main effects
Legislative Session Ends
While Maryland's legislative session normally ends with celebrations, this year we are all mourning the death of House Speaker Busch. Speaker Busch has served Maryland for many years, championing many environmental issues. His leadership in the House of Delegates and Maryland will be missed. When the bells rang at midnight, Maryland's legislative session officially ended. Here is where our priorities landed: The Keep Antibiotics Effective Act has passed both chambers and is on Governor Hogan's desk. This bill clarifies definitions for prophylactic use of antibiotics in farm animals. We are
Good News out of Annapolis
This week has been a big week for many Clean Water priorities. We will start with the disappointing news. On Monday, HB275/SB270 to ban chlorpyrifos failed to move forward in the Senate. The House of Delegates passed the bill, but the Senate would not move it out of committee. Read the coalition's statement here. Clean Water and the coalition will be back next year to ban this powerful and dangerous pesticide. Listen to The Environment in Focus by Tom Pelton for a good synopsis of the bill and the dynamics at play. But many good things happened this week! The Keep Antibiotics Effective Act has
April showers bring ... sewage back-ups
April showers don't only bring May flowers: in a city with sewage infrastructure in desparate need of expansion and repair, they also bring sewage into local streams, city streets, and even people's homes. Two years ago, Baltimore City signed a new Consent Decree, the agreement among the city and state and federal regulators that governs how the city must address sewage overflows. This modified consent decree, written after the city did not meet the original 2016 deadline for repairs to be completed, commits the city to making major infrastructure repairs to the Back River Wastewater Treatment
Septic Legislation in 2019
Septic systems are a decentralized way to treat human waste. In most cases, an individual home has its own septic system and drain field. Waste from a home is sent to a box, which holds it for awhile, then it slowly trickles out into the yard in a drain field, where the microbes in the soil further break down the waste. In a conventional system, a functioning septic system does a good job at breaking down bacterial and viral harms from the waste, but it does not address nitrogen pollution. In an advanced treatment unit (or Best Available Technology aka BAT), there is an additional step of