Anne Arundel officials ‘optimistic’ about negotiations to ease development moratorium

Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman told the County Council on Tuesday that a development moratorium covering part of northern Anne Arundel County is a “five-alarm fire” that he wants to move quickly to solve.

The moratorium, which means no new development projects will be approved, was announced last week by the county’s Department of Public Works. It stems from a capacity issue with sewage and wastewater that flows from Anne Arundel into Baltimore County and the city of Baltimore for treatment.

Karen Henry, Anne Arundel’s public works director, said it will take about eight months to design the infrastructure that the county needs to divert wastewater flow away from the Baltimore County connections, and then another four to five years to build it out.

She said a cost estimate was not prepared, but that a similar project previously cost about $38 million.

Meanwhile, Henry and Pittman said they’re pursuing other strategies to restore some of Anne Arundel’s capacity to allow it to lift the moratorium.

Henry said they have “not given up” on getting additional capacity from Baltimore County on a temporary basis. Pittman said he was “optimistic” about those negotiations.

“The moratorium has forced everybody to act,” he said.

Anne Arundel officials are also looking at purchasing capacity from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, which has its own direct connections to the Baltimore City sewage treatment plant, or even pumping and hauling sewage to a treatment site, rather than using pipes.

Pittman and Henry faced thorough and at times pointed questions from the council at a work session Tuesday. Council members were getting their first full briefing on the moratorium.

The administration officials explained that the moratorium arose from a decades-long misunderstanding arising from a sewage agreement with Baltimore County.

Anne Arundel Councilman Pete Smith, who represents most of the area covered by the moratorium, said he was shocked by the moratorium — and that he learned of it only when DPW sent out a press release about it.

“It’s a critical area for the state,” Smith said.

He added that he’d like for the council to be kept better informed about issues such as this in the future.

It seemed like the moratorium just “came out of the blue,” Smith said.

Anne Arundel officials said they had been operating with the understanding that the county’s allotted sewage capacity to the Baltimore County Patapsco Interceptor and Sewage Pumping Station was based on average daily flow. In 2023, though, Anne Arundel staff began reviewing its wastewater agreements and discovered that the 1981 arrangement between Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties called for capacity to be calculated based on peak flow.

Using the peak flow measurement, Anne Arundel County had exceeded its capacity at the pumping station. Anne Arundel staff learned on Feb. 9 they could not purchase additional capacity from Baltimore County.

Anne Arundel issued its moratorium on Feb. 27.

Henry described using average flow to determine capacity as the “traditional industry standard,” and that the city of Baltimore was basing its billing on average flow. This contributed to why the problem was not noticed sooner.

Baltimore has no issue with how much sewage Anne Arundel was sending to its treatment station, Henry said.

Asked by Anne Arundel County Council member Allison Pickard how the county could “miss” the peak flow requirement for so long, Henry said she wished she knew.

“Requiring it at peak flow is unusual. It got missed at some point along in the process,” Henry said.

Pittman called the agreement with Baltimore County an “unfair” measurement of Anne Arundel’s actual usage of the sewer system. There was “a lot of space” between average daily flow and peak flow, he added, that he hoped could be the subject of negotiation.

Ron Snyder, a spokesperson for the Baltimore County Department of Public Works and Transportation, said in an email the county is working with Baltimore City and Anne Arundel “to provide assistance if possible” but did not offer specifics.

“I’m really looking forward to sitting down with not just Baltimore County, but also MDE [the Maryland Department of the Environment] and the governor’s team to get that resolved,” Pittman said.

The moratorium covers an area just north of Fort Meade, including the BWI Business District and Arundel Mills. It’s a part of the state where officials have encouraged and embraced development and economic growth. Pittman called the area an economic hub and tax base for the county and state.

The moratorium means no new projects will be approved. Developments that already have sewer allocations will be allowed to continue. There are limited exceptions for tenant fit-out projects that do not need additional sewer capacity, and for residential properties with failing septic systems.

County officials said they are aware of 21 projects in development that are paused by the moratorium.

This story has been updated.