"State acts after city fails to fix pollution violations, maintenance problems by deadline".
"In a dramatic enforcement action, Maryland regulators moved Sunday to take over Baltimore’s troubled Back River sewage treatment plant after a weekend inspection found that city officials had failed to meet a 48-hour deadline to correct pollution violations and worsening maintenance problems found in an inspection late last week.
Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles directed the Maryland Environmental Service (MES) to run the plant, the state’s largest, after finding the city had failed to comply with an order issued Thursday to immediately cease illegal discharges of inadequately treated wastewater and to bring the plant into full compliance with its state-issued permit within 48 hours.
The MES is a not-for-profit business unit of the state that, according to its latest annual report, runs 89 mostly small municipal, county and privately owned wastewater facilities, as well as state-owned plants at prisons, hospitals, highway rest areas and state parks."
Timothy B. Wheeler reports for the Bay Journal March 27, 2022,
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