The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants Howard County to repay the federal government almost $1 million because the county can't find documents related to a grant for a waste-water treatment project completed in 1982.
And U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, who met privately with County Executive Charles I. Ecker and key officials in his administration yesterday to talk about the county's problems with the federal government, is livid about it.
A federal audit and demand for repayment 13 years after a project is completed is the kind of thing that leads people to become disillusioned with government, Senator Mikulski said.
"It's the classic role of the federal government -- focusing on the wrong thing."
"This is a great big fuss-budget, tinker-toy approach -- going over every piece of the program" and making the county "jump through a series of hoops," she said. "They're asking the county to produce records that even the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] wouldn't ask for. The county's mad at [the EPA], and I'm mad at them, too."
The money the EPA wants returned came to the county as part of a March 31, 1977, grant for a project to expand the waste-water treatment plant in Savage and make the plant comply with federal water quality standards.
The $44 million project was completed in 1982. But EPA auditors did not come calling until last summer. When they asked to examine detailed records from 18 years ago, the county could not produce them.
The auditors say the county should repay the federal government for everything for which there is no record. The county says that's not fair.
The original records are unnecessary, county officials say, because the Maryland Department of the Environment reviewed and approved contracts and change orders on behalf of the EPA before allowing construction to begin.
Senator Mikulski thinks Howard County should keep the money.
The senator said she plans to bring EPA and local government officials together soon to resolve the problem.
In another EPA matter, Howard County faces a mandate to increase car pooling -- in an effort to improve air quality in the Baltimore region. But Mr. Ecker says Howard is much less of a polluter than Baltimore.
It should not be required to have local businesses with 100 or more employees reduce their commuting trips by 20 percent, he said.
Senator Mikulski agrees. Her basic rubric is that "government should do no harm," she said. "Any rule should be based on common sense, continuity, and correctness."