What’s wrong with the Baltimore City Department of Public Works?
There’s a general rule of thumb at every level of government that when things are well-managed, you don’t hear much about them. It’s only when things are going badly that a particular agency, department or similar public sector entity is suddenly thrust into the limelight. Last week’s announcement out of the Baltimore City Department of Public Works that it intends to comply with the recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency order to complete two major drinking water projects at Druid Lake and Lake Ashburton before year’s end would be reassuring if this had been the first time DPW had come under scrutiny. It isn’t, and so it wasn’t. The city agency has achieved a degree of infamy in recent years that ought to be making Mayor Brandon Scott and members of the Baltimore City Council a great deal more uncomfortable than they appear to be — at least if they plan to seek reelection next year.
To put it simply, the Druid and Ashburton projects are overdue attempts to transition the city away from uncovered reservoirs to massive underground storage tanks to protect drinking water supplies from unhealthy contact with pollution sources, including bird droppings, trash and runoff from the streets.
For nearly two decades, communities across the United States have been moving in this direction. Yet Baltimore has repeatedly missed federal deadlines. The Biden EPA surely wasn’t seeking to embarrass city leaders, but the delays were eventually regarded as unacceptable. And then there’s the matter of protecting public health. Federal authorities had grown increasingly concerned since last September’s boil-water advisory when E. coli bacteria threatened residents of West Baltimore and southwest Baltimore County. Couldn’t DPW at least be hiring a lab to test for parasites at the reservoirs?
In a written statement released four days after the EPA notification, a DPW spokeswoman said her agency was “eager” to get the projects online by year’s end “barring unforeseen delays.” Again, that’s good news. And there’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic, with its attendant supply shortages and manpower issues, played a role, at least in recent years. Let’s keep in mind, however, that the EPA has been wrestling with the city over these projects for a lot longer than COVID has been around. And did we mention that these storage tank projects are the last stragglers in the entire Mid-Atlantic jurisdiction of EPA Region III, which includes West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware?
But that’s just one end of the pipeline, as it were. Baltimore’s record on wastewater treatment has also been much discussed in recent years because it’s even worse. The Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant has been under oversight of the Maryland Environmental Service because of all the pollution it’s been illegally discharging into Back River. And in the thick of this debacle earlier this year, DPW Director Jason W. Mitchell submitted his resignation (but later agreed to stay on through the end of June). He had served in that post less than two years when he made that announcement in early January and had come under fierce criticism much earlier for the city’s reduced recycling pickups. As if a lack of biweekly collection was the biggest challenge facing this troubled city agency.
The DPW currently lists at least five vacancies in leadership (not counting Mitchell), and Paul Sayan, who heads the bureau in charge of waste and wastewater, is listed as “acting.” So is the bureau head who manages solid waste. It would seem then, the first step to getting the department on track might to be better fill that organizational chart with experienced, energized employees who can fix what’s clearly broken. Hopefully, last year’s creation of a DPW infrastructure czar (a post now filled by Matthew W. Garbark) should help.
Meanwhile, we’d like to see greater evidence that there’s some serious oversight going on. What has the City Council been doing all this time? Obviously, fretting about underground storage tanks and aboveground sewage treatment doesn’t get you the headlines or TV interviews that lambasting police or school leadership does (or even recycling schedules), but that doesn’t make it less important. At least not for city residents who would nonetheless appreciate some reassurance that the water that comes out of their kitchen tap is safe to drink.