$#!* For the Goose is $#!* For the Gander

From a former editor in the Baltimore Sun comes this article decrying attempts by Marylands Westerns Shore suburban counties to resist Gov. O'Malley's attempts to stop new development using septic tanks rather than much more expensive sewage treatment plants:

Don’t be surprised if longtime poop warriors along the Chesapeake Bay’s thickly populated Western Shore are not sympathetic to claims that builders in still rural parts of the watershed should have unlimited use of septic tanks.

Those backyard sewage disposal devices send pollutants into the ground where it can leach into waterways and sometimes drinking water supplies. In Maryland, at least, they are the fastest growing source of bay pollution, so the long practice of one-by-one septic tank approvals, common throughout the bay area, doesn’t make sense to those at the cleanup end.

Although, to be fair, there have been a lot of people on the Western Shore anxious to see Baltimore clean up it's act without wanting to clean up their own.  That's pretty much human nature.

To meet federal bay pollution cleanup requirements, Bowen proposes to retire half of the 40,000 septic tanks serving homes along his county’s (Ann Arundel) 530 miles of sensitive shoreline. The price tag of $760 million includes several techniques, such as the creation of new cluster treatment plants that serve only one community.

Bowen also needs $270 million to upgrade the county’s seven sewage treatment plants, and more than $1 billion to restore stream beds and otherwise deal with storm water runoff. Altogether, that’s almost twice the annual county budget. Like most other watershed counties with similar needs, Anne Arundel doesn’t have the money.

O’Malley hopes to help local governments meet at least some of these costs by persuading the state legislature to raise the “flush tax” on sewer and septic users.

I'd love to see sewage come into our area, but even with all the talk about Chesapeake Bay clean up, I've heard no serious proposals to fund and build one.  I'd be happy to see all the flush tax money collected in Baltimore be dedicated to building us sewers.  I think that's only fair, since until now, most of our flush tax money has been spent to build sewers for Baltimore.