As if Maryland's fiscal woes aren't bad enough, it appears there's a looming deficit in the state's fund to pay for upgrading sewage treatment plants. And if it's not worked out by next year, it could delay or even derail cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.
The Bay Restoration Fund, as it's known, is financed with the so-called "flush tax," the $30 annual fee the General Assembly approved in 2004 that is paid by every household and business hooked up to a sewer system.
According to the Maryland Department of the Environment, the fund has paid out more than $159 million so far for wastewater treatment plant upgrades. A dozen are finished, with 14 under construction. Another 25 plant upgrades are in design, with 16 still in planning.
The only problem is the three largest treatment plants - the Baltimore area's Back River and Patapsco, and Washington's Blue Plains - have yet to be upgraded. The bills for those three all come due around the same time, overtaxing the fund to the tune of $660 million. State officials are pondering how to close the gap, with the possibility that they may ask for a 50 percent increase in the flush tax or fee.
Construction is already under way on the Patapsco treatment plant in Fairfield, (pictured above, with plant in foreground). The 73-million-gallon a day facility serves part of Baltimore city and much of Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard counties. It's to be finished in 2013.
Work is slated to begin in November on the 180 million-gallon-a-day Back River plant, which treats sewage from half of Baltimore city and half of Baltimore County. It's due to wrap up in 2015.
The big megillah is the Washington area's Blue Plains treatment plant, a 370-million-gallon-a-day monster that treats the waste from the Maryland suburbs of the nation's capital, along with the District and part of Northern Virginia. Construction on it is to start in September 2011 and take more than five years.
The three combined account for nearly two-thirds of the nitrogen reductions from sewage plants and industries that Maryland officials have pledged to make as part of the overall bay cleanup plan.
But with work on all three overlapping, the bay fund won't have enough to pay the bills. Robert M. Summers, deputy secretary of the environment, told lawmakers on Tuesday that the fund will start to run in the red in 2012 and the deficit could reach $660 million by 2018. In a briefing for the House Environmental Matters Committee, Summers said officials have asked an advisory committee for recommendations on how to deal with the shortfall.
So far, five options have been put on the table. The simplest would be to increase the flush tax or fee by roughly 50 percent, from $30 a year to $45. That would cover the gap, but it may give some lawmakers heartburn.
Other options include the state shifting some of the costs of the upgrades to local governments. Right now, the state fund covers the full costs of the work. Local officials aren't likely to welcome that. A variation on that would allow the state fund to pay debt service on bonds local governments would issue to pay for the upgrades.
Lastly, the state could decide to delay or drop certain plant upgrades - but the state doesn't have much latitude here, since the federal government is drawing up a court-ordered pollution diet for Maryland and other bay states that will impose a timetable for pollution reductions.
With some difficult budget decisions to be made in the next three months, no one on the committee spoke up for boosting the flush tax - or for any of the other options, either. But then again, a decision isn't needed until next year.
(2007 Photo by Jane Thomas, IAN/UMCES)