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Vital Views
The Severna Park Voice, January 2006
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Council in Action
by Councilwoman Cathleen M Vitale
Well the New Year finally made it - as if we could have stopped it
anyway. I hope everyone had an opportunity to enjoy a safe and happy
holiday season. For this Councilwoman, the end of 2005 meant the
changing of the guard at the Council. Ed Reilly, Councilman from
District 7 was elected a Chairman, and yours truly was elected to serve
as Vice Chairman. As with all new titles, comes additional work,
concerns and worries, but your Council leadership is up to the task. As
we enter into the last year of this term, the Council will continue to
move forward to address funding needs, infrastructure shortfalls and
educational plans.
The end of the year also brought about an environmental nightmare for
the County and the citizens of our district.. By now, most of you have
read the articles or seen the news clips regarding the Mill Creek
pumping station malfunction. For those that were away, a bit of old
news.
On December 19, 2005, I was notified that there had been a major fault
in the wastewater line serving the Mill Creek Pumping Station. The
result was nothing short of a catastrophe as millions of gallons of raw
sewage flowed into Mill Creek. When I arrived on site, I was
dumb-founded to find a crater, the size of a small pond swallowing up
grass, mud and, yes, trees. The erosion of dirt had caused the pumping
station to fill with mud and debris and ultimately shut it down.
The Mill Creek pumping station is a prime example of the aging
facilities we have here in Anne Arundel County. Originally built in 1973
with then, state of the art technology, the station has suffered from
repeated problems, including odor and fumes emanating from the station,
to mechanical failures, third party breaches and now, the collapse of
the 36" sewer line. Including this latest spill, there have been more
than two dozen separate spills into the waterway. Since the early 90's
the County has spent several millions of dollars to upgrade the systems
to prevent overflow from reaching the river. This latest spill, more
than 3,000,000 gallons is by far the most devastating. So what do we do?
There are two immediate concerns.
The first, is to not only fix the broken line, but to go further
‘upstream" in the system and replace additional sections of the pipeline
that inspections have shown, may have been compromised. Corrosion inside
the lines appears to be the culprit. According to conversations with
Department of Public Works employees, when the Mill Creek station was
put into service, and the concrete piping was used, it was the newest
and safest of technology. Now it appears, it is susceptible to "sewer
gases" which corrode away the concrete. Residents will be able to see
where the repair and replacement work is progressing as it requires
above ground "by-pass" lines, usually blue in color laid along the
public roadways. With so much of the County's system made from these
concrete pipes, one has to wonder whether we can repair and replace
before another major spill.
The second concern, and perhaps the one most effecting local residents
is, what has this done to Mill Creek and the Magothy. Since the spill
several environmental agencies as well as individuals have been involved
in testing the waterways. Among the concerns are to what level and
extent the water is contaminated with algae and bacteria, and what steps
will be needed to restore the Mill Creek wetlands area. Plans are
currently underway to implement a sediment removal plan in the affected
areas of the wetlands. Sediment removal and a containment system have
been approved by the Maryland Department of the Environment. I have
spoken with officials from the Department of the Environment about
possible dredging action in those most effective areas of the creek to
remove phosphates will lock up in the sediments
In the coming weeks, my office, the Department of Public Works, the
Health Department and others from the County will be holding a town
meeting to discuss Mill Creek, the pumping station and what happens
next. Notification will likely be by press release and contact to those
community associations who have expressed an interest in participating.
If you would like to be notified, please send me an email at cvitale@aacounty.org.
In this way, I can see that you are properly notified. We will provide
as much lead time as possible.
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