The Davidsonville area is roughly in the center of the 110 mile Patuxent corridor with some distinctive problems to the north, the south and of course right here next to home.

After over a year of comprehensive and painstaking research and review of State records, the Patuxent Riverkeeper in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council has finally completed a compliance sweep of the Patuxent permitted discharge violators.

The bad news is the two leading contenders are very nearby the Davidsonville community. Our aim has been to determine which enterprises or facilities are the most chronic and persistent discharge polluters in our Patuxent tributary.  The runners-up include a potpourri of buggy, outmoded and troubled industrial faculties and wastewater plants that exist by virtue of state issued permits that are regularly violated and that the state rarely enforces.

The leader of the pack is Dorsey Run Waste Water Treatment Plant (Jessup, Anne Arundel County) with 24 violations between 2005 and 2010 and the second runner up is the Harwood Landfill.  The records also showed that, between July 2003 and June 2009, problems at the Dorsey Run facility and in the sewer pipes leading to it caused sewage spills totaling about 2.2 million gallons of raw sewage.  A further 11 million gallons of partially treated sewage were discharged when the plant’s sand filtration system broke in late October 2007. The Patuxent Riverkeeper and NRDC are now looking at a variety of tactics to bring these facilities into compliance. 

Meanwhile, slightly downstream are two wastewater treatment plants, namely  Waysons Mobile Court and Patuxent Mobile Estates, which recently had state discharge permits up for renewal. The plants use late 1960s and 1970s vintage processing technology in order to treat the sewage waste generated by the mobile home courts they serve.

As many Marylanders know, the state’s Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund collects a fee from residents statewide that is used to upgrade major wastewater plants. However, the funds are not prioritized to benefit these smaller facilities. As a result, the mobile home park's processing plants return treated wastewater to the Patuxent and/or nearby streams that while low in harmful bacteria is really high in excess nutrients and phosphorous. 

In fact, lab scientists at Chesapeake Biological Labs in Solomons, MD, after analyzing dependent samples taken by Patuxent Riverkeeper referred to the tests from the two Anne Arundel County plants as  “screamingly high!” 

The Riverkeeper organization and several citizens petitioned the state for public hearings to review what might be done about these plants. For perspective, there are some 36 wastewater plants that drain into the Patuxent of which 30 are considered by the states as “minors” and therefore low on the list of priority targets for upgrades and subsidies for modernization efforts.  

The Patuxent Riverkeeper’s concern has been that while these plants might individually be minor contributors to the water quality woes, all 30 of them combined present a regulatory loophole of potentially “major” proportions. Notably the Patuxent River Report Card produced annually by Patuxent Riverkeeper in cooperation with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences has repeatedly scored this river at D- for steadily declining water quality and the Patuxent waters along the Anne Arundel County boundary as impaired for nutrients.

The private operators of these plants in principle actually benefit economically from low state willpower to more vigorously regulate.  The moral overtones of putting a cost burden on residents of modest means was a controversial feature of the public hearings held at Lothian Elementary School during October 2009, which the operator/owners of these businesses indicates they would have to close the facilities and displace the residents if they are required to bear the of cost of upgrading their wastewater plants to present day  technological performance standards.  

In fact, the state typically has not even required these plants to monitor outflows for nutrients. The mere fact of being a “minor” has relaxed regulatory diligence to the extent we have neither monitored nor capped the nutrients these permittees are allowed to discharge into the waters we fish, swim and draw drinking water from.

The Patuxent Riverkeeper was joined by retired state Sen. Bernie Fowler, sometimes called the “preacher for the Patuxent,” who raised genuine angst about a business enterprise whose profit margin—even while serving people of modest means—still relies on out-of-date technology and acknowledges openly that it cannot make a profit unless exempted from the need to re-invest and modernize facilities designed to protect the public health and safety.

It is, of course, the very definition of pollution-based prosperity and unsustainable business. As a result of these efforts, the State has issued renewal permits for now that at least require the owner/operators to monitor for nutrients.  The information at least provides empirical data about the quantum contribution made by these generators to an already sick tributary.

Incidentally, the  same business venture operates two additional waste water treatment plants on the Patuxent with renewals scheduled in the near future.

Davidsonville Green Expo reminder

Elsewhere in the Davidsonville area, please save the date for the next Green Expo, on March 19 from 11 a.m to 4 p.m., organized by the Davidsonville Area Citizens Association and several other participating groups.

This event last year outgrew the all expectations—and ran out of space. This year the venue is larger and will be at Riva Trace Baptist Church on Central Avenue in Davidsonville. Exhibits, activities for youngsters, tree distribution for planting in buffer areas, green technology and sustainable vendors.

This year’s Green Expo is expected to be bigger than the prior two. The Patuxent Riverkeeper will be there for sure.

Small boat put-in nearly complete

Lastly, a birdy tells us that the county has at last approved the final funding needed to install a floating boat ramp at Davidsonville Recreational Park, making this one of the more impressive and readily accessible sites along the growing Patuxent Water Trail. The construction of a wood frame staircase that leads from the steep upland area to the water’s edge with a steel railing system to help users wrangle their kayaks or canoes up and down the slope is already completed.

For those with winter cabin fever, the Spring 2011 paddling season looms just ahead.