Wicomico County, like the rest of the Eastern Shore, is experiencing growth pressure these days. 

It's apparently gotten ugly there, though, as the Salisbury Daily Times reports that the county's environmental health officer was fired recently after builders and real estate agents complained. They charged that she was holding up permits for septic systems to treat sewage from new homes, requiring extra tests and in some cases costly additional precautions to prevent pollution from contaminating ground water - the source of many residents' drinking water.

Homes built out away from cities and towns often have to rely on wells and septic systems, in which residential sewage is collected in an underground tank and bacteria decompose it, letting the treated water seep into the soil.  Such systems if improperly designed or placed, cannot remove pollution as reliably as municipal wastewater treatment plants, and failing septic systems do contribute to the bay's fouling.  The states's Smart Growth policy seeks to encourage development using public utilties because it takes up less land as well, but cannot mandate it.   

The environmental health officer said she was trying to protect the ground water and the bay. But Wicomico real estate interests complaining of arbitrary and unfair treatment, got the ear of local legislators, the Times reports, and the county's environmental health officer got the boot.

Environmental activists now are raising alarm that relaxed handling of septic systems with her gone will taint ground water for drinking and even allow pollution to seep into Chesapeake Bay.  Read the whole article here.