The "civil penalties" were not disclosed in the press release, but in addition to whatever fine the County was forced to pay, the "negotiated settlement" included the following:
• Present MDE with a draft Capacity, Management, Operation, and Maintenance Program (CMOM) within 30 days;
• Present MDE with a draft Overflow Emergency Response Plan within 90 days;
• Conduct a performance assessment audit to evaluate the CMOM one year after implementation of the approved CMOM Program and annually during the life of the agreement;
• Communicate with the public regarding implementation and performance of the CMOM Program one year after implementation and annually during the life of the agreement;
• Within 90 days, submit to MDE a report describing any work completed and a schedule for future work to implement the County’s recommendations to correct Inflow & Infiltration and any other sewer defects;
• Submit semi-annual progress reports to MDE; and
• Pay the sum of $58,400 to MDE’s “Clean Water Fund.”
A few questions: Where are our "health" priorities when we have a million dollar HHAP program with 700 participants while our sewage treatment plants are dumping untreated sewage water into the Patapsco river? Why didn't we already have a CMOM program? Most importantly, how was this allowed to happen?
While Howard County officials may down play the damage by suggesting that our County is actually the best polluter out of all the polluting counties, the aggregate that we have contributed to under their watch is disturbing. This is on you, Ken. All the "green" in the world isn't going to help us if we can't take care of the basics. I can only hope the local papers delve into this further, and our representatives come up with some real excuses that amount to more than this:
I get pissed off whenever I hear a load of shit like this.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely incredible! For someone like Ulman, who is supposidly a friend of the Environment this is incredible! What has He been doing for the last four years? Oh thats right He is worried about people getting in out of the bad weather when there is a storm....So much for the Bay and His environnmental stewardship!
ReplyDeleteI thought that when Ken created a new position for his best friend Mr. Fledmark, Director of Environmental Affairs or whatever, that he was supposed to improve this situation for the County and the condition of our streams and waterways. I just love it when raw sewage flows directly into our public water supply. God bless the Dept. of Public works for doing the best that they can. I know that they have a regular jetwashing program designed to prevent this sort of thing from happening. These workers rarely get any praise for their work and are often blamed when something goes wrong. Beleive me they are not the problem. Lack of funding from mis-management of the County budget has tied their hands and prevented them from doing thier jobs to the level of service required. If the environment was something Ken really cared about, he would do more than just blame us dumb citizens. How about some responsible leadership?
ReplyDeleteIs this a euphemism for raw sewage dumping from Howard County into the Patuxent? Where in the bloody hell has the press been in this?
ReplyDeleteIf there is so much interest in getting to the bottom of what this is actually about, and not what it means for horse race politics, you should take a stab at asking questions yourself (rather than pointing at the media to do it for you).
ReplyDeleteInstead, you fall back on under-informed indignation and non-sequiturs about Health Howard.
As for the semantics, Ken says in the press release "We take full responsibility." Which is a more eloquent way of saying "We messed up" or exactly what you accuse him of NOT doing. Also, putting out a press release about something that is clearly a political liability seems like further admission of fault.
The part about FOG certainly does sound like buck-passing, but if more than a third of all overflows are caused by that, reminding residents about this fact could be a quick and fairly easy way to make a dent in that third of the problem. But go ahead, take umbrage about something that didn't matter to you until politically convenient.
Ken's a big boy and so are you. I don't need to defend him or tell you what to do. But if you really care about the health of our waters, spend some time digging into this; ask some questions, find some real sources of information (not just the first story that popped up in a Google news search for "Howard County sewer overflow") and provide some real insights.
Don't fall back on the media or politicians to tell you what something means -- they're usually wrong anyway.
I suppose Ken Ulman is not a politician?
ReplyDeleteI do what research I can. In this case the news release was the story. While Exec Ulman certainly says he takes responsibility, the rest of the release is about FOG and an unsupported statistic that despite earlier reports of FOG causing overflow in approximately 1/3 of the cases, it now is "over 50%." However there is no discussion of what causes the other 66-50% of overflows, but hey, whatever it is, Ken takes responsibility for it. Probably not important for us to know what it is anyway.
While you may believe HHAP is a non sequitur, it is my own personal belief that political resume boosters should be put after the basics of what our county government is supposed to do. I could see how someone with your apparent view points would not see those two issues as being anything related.
I would love to know where the "real" sources of information that you refer to may be found. You say "ask questions," but also said that I shouldn't ask politicians (or presumably their employees), which means news releases are out. News stories are also apparently bad, so long as they are "the first story that popped up in a Google news search." Should I ask you, Anonymous? Please, enlighten me.
"But go ahead, take umbrage about something that didn't matter to you until politically convenient."
ReplyDeleteKen Ulman is all about doing things that are politically convenient. If he was not, he would stand up the police department after they shot and killed two family dogs during botched raids and dropped the ball on a murder investigation that should have been a slam dunk. He was all over the Halloween shooting like white on rice until the moment when charges were dropped against the suspect- then he mysteriously lost interest. Ken is a political coward.
"But go ahead, take umbrage about something that didn't matter to you until politically convenient."
ReplyDeleteKen Ulman is all about doing things that are politically convenient. If he was not, he would stand up the police department after they shot and killed two family dogs during botched raids and dropped the ball on a murder investigation that should have been a slam dunk. He was all over the Halloween shooting like white on rice until the moment when charges were dropped against the suspect- then he mysteriously lost interest. Ken is a political coward.
Thank God people are not forgetting what has occurred throughout the incumbent’s tenure. Thanks FM for keeping that on the record.
ReplyDeleteAnon 7:39pm, what do you think the press is there for? To limit stories to who is still knitting at 81 yo, or which child brought flowers for the teacher? They ALSO supposed to tell us what is in fact going on!!!
They fail miserably, taking the easy stories, sitting in the laps of electeds playing patti cake and sneering at readers. And then they wonder at readerships dropping like a stone.
Sewage in our waterways is unbelievably unhealthy. We should have been told. Instead they did an on-the-fence analysis of whether or not the Savage residents were actually smelling raw sewage. Disgraceful, all of them.
That 1/3 sounds like a total lie. Let’s just call it what it is.
The cause of the overflows is we built far too many residences for our infrastructure to handle. Now they've approved 5500 MORE?!
ReplyDeleteThis is beyond the pale. Abominable.
You want real information? Patuxent Riverkeepers has photos of sewage infrastructure falling apart, sitting in the natural waterways.
ReplyDelete