Task force wades into septic, growth morass
The task force Gov. Martin O'Malley set up to study the septic system curbs he couldn't get through the General Assembly this year held its first meeting in Annapolis today, and it quickly became clear that even another five months may not be enough time to sort out this controversial issue.
There were no fireworks, everyone was cordial during the two-hour opening session, which was devoted largely to briefings from state officials. But several task force members representing farmers and rural communities made it plain they were leery of any state action to restrict development using septic systems.
State Sen. David R. Brinkley, R-Frederick, said he thought the 28-member group ought to keep landowners' property rights in mind as it contemplates recommending any new limits on development beyond the reach of public sewers. He noted that the O'Malley administration also is weighing new restrictions on farmers' use of chemical and animal fertilizer to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay, and called it "another perceived assault on rural or agricultural Maryland."
Patricia Langenfelder, president of the Maryland Farm Bureau, said farmers are worried that curbs on the use of septic systems could devalue their land. Most are not looking to sell their fields and pasture for development, she added, but rely on the development value of the land as collateral for financing their farming operations.
Others urged the panel to look at other growth-related issues, including the looming shortfall of funding to upgrade sewage treatment plants and the need for more tax breaks or other incentives to get farmers to preserve their land.
There are 426,000 septic systems in Maryland now - including nearly one-fourth of all homes - which officials estimate are producing 8 percent of the nitrogen that's getting into area streams and polluting the bay. Each household on a septic system produces up to 10 times as much nitrogen as one connected by sewer to a wastewater treatment plant.
The governor had pushed for legislation that would bar major new developments on septic systems and would have required more costly but less polluting advanced septic systems for smaller housing developments. But farmers, developers and rural officials raised an outcry, and legislative leaders tabled the bill for more study.
The O'Malley administration has proposed curbing new devlelopment on septic systems as an add-on to a broader plan for reducing pollution fouling the bay. The state was required to come up with the plan by the Environmental Protection Agency, which has called for a 20 to 25 percent reduction baywide in nutrients and sediments getting into the bay.
But some said the issue goes beyond just the bay to the continuing toll low-density development is taking on Maryland's farmland and forests.
"This is far more important than just meeting our nitrogen reduction goals," said Russell Brinsfield, director of the University of Maryland Center for Agro-Ecology. He noted that if state planners' projections are correct, nearly one-fourth of the state's remaining agricultural lands could be lost to development in the next 25 to 30 years. "If we aren't careful about how we grow," he added, "we're going to leave to the next generation a Maryland quite different from the one I knew" growing up.
Del. Maggie McIntosh, chair of the House Environmental Matters Committee and of the task force, said the group would meet twice a month in an effort to craft legislative and policy recommendations by Dec. 1, which she called a "mammoth task." But the Baltimore city Democrat said the task force needs to sort through the tangle of issues around septic systems, sewage plants, rural economies and land preservation and "look at how we grow in a sustainable way in Maryland."
To learn more about the task force and track its work, go here.
(Septic tank on new home in Baltimore County, Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)
