Overshadowed by the debate over Gov. Martin O'Malley's bid to curtail rural and suburban development on septic systems, jockeying has been taking place in Annapolis around a less sweeping but nonetheless significant proposal to require all new homes built on septic in Maryland to use advanced pollution removal technology. Not everything is as it seems, though, with the proffer of support from the state's builders.
HB 177 and its companion bill, SB160, would extend virtually statewide the law enacted two years ago that bars installation of conventional septic systems on land near the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic coastal bays. Similar statewide legislation was introduced in 2009, but its scope was whittled down to apply just to the 1,000 strip of waterfront known as the "Critical Area" around the bays and their tidal tributaries.
Environmentalists are backing this new statewide legislation, possibly as a fallback should the measure backed by O'Malley, HB1107 and SB846, not pass. That bill would bar any development of five homes or more on septic systems and require less polluting advanced septics whenever individual homes or smaller projects are built beyond the reach of sewer lines.
Advocates point out that conventional septic systems leak nitrogen into ground water and streams, which contributes to the fouling of water quality in the bays. Officials estimate there are 420,000 homes on septic systems in Maryland already, contributing 8 percent of the nitrogen responsible for algae blooms and the formation of a sprawling "dead zone" every summer in the Chesapeake. A household on a conventional septic system releases up to 10 times as much nitrogen into the water as one where waste is piped to a state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant, state officials say.
Advanced septic systems can cut the nitrogen leakage in half, but they cost around $10,000 to $13,000 to install, thousands more than a conventional system. For that reason, Realtors have come out against expanding the requirement for them, arguing that the added cost would deter some rural and suburban home sales in a still-weakened real estate market.
The Maryland State Builders Association, though, raised some eyebrows last week by offering to support the advanced septic requirement if it was amended to their liking. The builders group opposes outright the more sweeping measure backed by Gov. O'Malley, so its backing of another major septic mandate would be noteworthy. On closer inspection, however, one of the amendments the group proposes to the advanced septic requirement would carve out a massive loophole, severely limiting the reach of the new pollution control measure.
The builders group suggested that advanced septic systems only be required for new construction within 100 feet of a water body that's officially designated by the state as "impaired" by nitrogen.
While nearly all of the Chesapeake and the coastal bays are impaired by nitrogen, only 1.6 percent of the nontidal river and stream watersheds in Maryland -- 171 miles out of a total of 10,820 stream miles - are similarly classified, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of the Environment.
That's because they're fresh water, where another plant nutrient, phosphorus, tends to play a bigger role in sparking algae blooms. But even though nitrogen is not causing local water quality problems in the fresh-water portions of rivers and streams, it's still leaking from septics and other sources there and is carried downstream to the saltier waters of the bay, where it does make trouble. That's why Maryland and other bay states have been working with the federal government to effect a 25 percent reduction in nitrogen getting into streams across the entire 64,000-square-mile bay watershed.
Builders' representatives don't acknowledge that what they're proposing would all but negate the intent of the bill, doing very little to reduce the nitrogen coming from new development on septics across the bay's vast upstream watershed. Tom Farasy, the group's ex-president responded that if amended, the bill would still be focused on nitrogen-impaired "hotspots."
"We all have limited resources, and this would clearly devote these resources to areas that would be benefited the most," Farasy said in an email.
But Del. Stephen W. Lafferty, a Baltimore County Democrat who's the chief House sponsor of the statewide advanced septic bill, said if lawmakers accepted the builders' amendments, the measure would have "de minimus" reach.
"On first blush, it doesn't seem to be anything that's very workable," he said. Still, Lafferty said he was continuing to talk with parties on all sides of the debate.
(Septic system installed with a new home being built in northern Baltimore County. Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)