The Salisbury Wastewater Treatment Plant, in Wicomico County on the Eastern Shore, has the capacity to treat about seven million gallons of wastewater a day (including about a million gallons daily from a local Perdue Farms poultry processing plant).
The Salisbury plant has a long history of violations, including in 2016, when the plant discharged 416,651 pounds of nitrogen pollution into a tributary to the Wicomico River, according to EPA data. That was four times its permit limit and also higher than a more relaxed interim limit set by the state. The facility also discharged 9,467 pounds of phosphorus last year, which was 22 percent above its permit legal limit.
In 2017, the Salisbury plant also violated its permit limits. From January through September of this year, it discharged more than three times the total amount of nitrogen that it is allowed to release in a full year, according to state and federal records.
A review of MDE inspection records for the plant show an extensive list of problems stretching back years, including a plant superintendent not certified to supervise the facility in 2016. In addition, a June 26, 2017, letter from MDE to the city of Salisbury described 15 sewage overflows from the plant from May 2013 to December 2016. The letter also detailed 63 permit limit violations for excessive releases of nitrogen, copper and chlorine. The plant on September 29, 2016, released 177,880 gallons of sewage into the Wicomico River during a rainfall. More than 76,000 gallons overflowed on June 30, 2016, due to a construction error, according to state records.
Between 2005 and 2010, Salisbury spent more than $80 million on a major upgrade and rebuilding of the plant. But the improvements did not work as advertised to reduce nitrogen pollution, triggering a lawsuit and protracted legal battle between the city and the contractors. Meanwhile, pollution kept flowing into the Wicomico River, inspiring the state to slap $333,750 in fines on Salisbury from 2012 through 2017, according to EPA records.
[This is from a recent report by the Environmental Integrity Project, which is a consortium of former EPA enforcement attorneys. For questions about that report, please contact EIP Director of Communications Tom Pelton at (202) 888-2703 or tpelton@environmentalintegrity.org]
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
8 comments:
and they think it will handle the folk festival
why not? ever seen the inner harbor how disgusting it is? only fitting that da bury would also be an open sewer! both run by democrats!
The new WWTP and Perdue factory are contributing to the destruction of the Chesapeake Bay. And Jakey boy is on the payroll of Perdue, him and his drunk daddy won't do nothing to stop the hundreds of violations and spills!
Interesting that the Mayor's father runs the biggest source of pollution at the WWTP. Isn't that a real conflict of interest, not just the appearance of one? Where's Pretl, Groutt and the Wicomico Environmental Trust on this?
They've been dumping in that river for decades do you think they're really worried about what the folk festival is going to do? They'll stage another "accidental" discharge and rid the city of the problem for awhile
If you were to look, you would find most wastewater plants connected with poultry to be in or heading for major upset.
Millsboro, Temperanceville,Harbeson. Who's next?
This has been a crooked deal for the last 15 years with the attorney that signed off on the deal still being employed!
For this we pay a ridiculous fee.
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