MARVIN MANDEL, Governor

2689

As a result of the torrential rains from tropical
storm "Eloise" which occurred in the late summer of 1975,
sewage and silt flowed into the upper portions of the
Patuxent River and eventually reached the Tri-County area
of Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's Counties. The
pollution was so serious that it forced the closing of
the oyster beds in the lower portion of the river and put
several hundred persons out of work at the start of the
oyster harvesting season.

The Patuxent is a beautiful and productive waterway
and a vital part of the economy and of the attractiveness
of the entire Southern Maryland area.

In the wake of Tropical Storms "Agnes", which
occurred in June of 1972, and "Eloise", quantities of raw
sewage or inadequately treated wastewater flushed
downstream into the Chesapeake Bay after a number of
sewage facilities were flooded out in the Susquehanna
basin in New York and Pennsylvania. Consequently,
soft-shell clam harvesting was halted in the Bay because
of high bacteria counts.

The shutdowns caused economic hardships to watermen,
seafood packers and employees of seafood processors.

It is imperative that some solution be found to the
problem of excessive pollution in State waters for the
protection of the citizens of this State.

When flood waters begin to rise, sewage pumping
stations located in the flood plain are threatened and
the electric motors which drive the pumps sometimes are
removed before they are destroyed or damaged by
inundation. These motors can be protected and kept in
operation by perhaps putting them in waterproof housings
of some type.

Entire sewage treatment plants are not so easily
waterproofed, but dikes or berms could be constructed
around them so that flood waters could be held out.

It is firmly believed that it would be less
expensive, more technically sound, and just as effective
to make the facilities floodproof instead of embarking on
a program to place all or some sewage facilities above
the flood plain.

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission has placed
top priority on developing a program to floodproof water
and sewage facilities in the basin. The Commission is
made up of representatives of Maryland, Pennsylvania, New
York and the Federal Government.

One of the current, active possibilities to
alleviate the present unsatisfactory conditions would be
a moratorium on further sewer hookups in those areas of
the State where sewage facilities are presently