Column: Salisbury to be commended for wastewater treatment efforts

Re: “Salisbury sewage plant piles up $300,000-plus in EPA fines,” Nov. 29

The recently released report from the Environmental Integrity Project on wastewater treatment plants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed provides the basis for an article by Jeremy Cox that appeared in The Daily Times. It focuses on the performance of the Salisbury plant and the condition of the Wicomico River's water quality.

Read:Salisbury sewage plant piles up $300,000-plus in EPA fines

The Integrity Report directs attention to the unseen pollutants in our river, and raises awareness of the urgent need to continue work to improve water quality.

However, The Daily Times article, we believe, turned that into a sensationalized interpretation that downplays the extensive work Salisbury has been doing to bring online a state-of-the-art treatment plant within the next six months. 

We do not quarrel with the facts about the river’s water quality as presented in the Integrity Report. There is really nothing new, except perhaps the manner of presenting the data, and again highlighting acknowledged problematic past performance of the Salisbury plant.

The Wicomico Environmental Trust and the Wicomico Creekwatchers have been reporting similar results of poor water quality in the river throughout 15 years of monitoring and annual reports. 

Where the Daily Times report falls woefully short is in ignoring the city’s acceptance of responsibility for the problems and the good faith efforts by Salisbury to remedy the admitted problems, rather than duck responsibility.

In sharp contrast, the Integrity Report describes how Pennsylvania officials admit using a trading system to avoid modernizing, by simply paying to pollute. 

Salisbury has spent more than $64 million upgrading and building a state-of-the-art “enhanced nutrient removal” process that is expected to reduce the pollution from nitrogen and phosphorous below limits set by the EPA.

The Integrity Project Report acknowledges this, and notes that Maryland officials expect the state will achieve reductions of millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorous when incomplete projects, which include Salisbury and 13 other plants in various stages of completion, are finally completed.

The city will bring a major component of the new plant into operation by the end of this month, with full compliance in the spring of 2018. Meanwhile, it has already begun to reduce pollutants exiting the plant. 

The Maryland Department of Environment acknowledges “the complexity of upgrading (its) wastewater treatment plants to the limit of technology, while ensuring the continued operation of these facilities during construction.” 

Upgrades cannot be designed and constructed quickly, and the failure of the first ill-designed Salisbury plant set the city far behind in both cost and time to completion.

More:Coastal bays get mediocre grade, but environmentalists are optimistic

Several years ago, the city recognized that one unaddressed factor contributing to the problem was leakage from surface water into the sewage system, which can overwhelm the capacity of the treatment plant during major storms.

Under the guidance of then-City Council President Jake Day, the city went a step further, and voluntarily initiated a stormwater utility fee, which now raises $600,000 annually, and is updating the 100-year-old stormwater system that contributes to that problem.

Unfortunately, The Daily Times article makes it appear the fines assessed to the city are a result of negligence and irresponsibility of current elected officials. In fact, the city has been working with all possible speed to construct and bring the new plant fully online.

City officials are not sitting on their hands doing nothing. Meantime, a part of the money assessed by the “fines” has been used to pay for other local water improvement projects and thereby further improve the quality of the water entering the Wicomico River. 

The wide-ranging report of the Environmental Integrity Project correctly calls our attention to current shortcomings and challenging tasks ahead for improving the Chesapeake Bay.

The citizens and officials of Salisbury are to be commended for acknowledging the inadequacy and problems of their present systems, and for spending millions of dollars to address those problems. 

We expect those investments, good will and hard work will begin to pay off in the very near future. 

John Groutt is a member of the board of directors of Wicomico Environmental Trust.