Hoyer hears county infrastructure needs

Light rail, water and sewer systems top priority list in district

As Congress gears up to debate legislation to pump federal funding into infrastructure projects across the country, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md., 5th) heard suggestions from Charles County elected officials on priorities related to transportation and improvements to aging water and sewer systems in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District.

Commissioner Gilbert Bowling III (D) and Commissioner Thomasina Coates (D) presented a list of five capital improvement projects selected by county government department heads to Hoyer as part of a recent roundtable discussion in Bowie that also included presentations by elected officials from Prince George’s County on their infrastructure needs.

Four of the projects were related to water and sewer infrastructure. They included a two-phase proposal to increase the water supply to Waldorf by constructing more connections to water lines operated by the Washington

Suburban Sanitary Commission and then constructing a new surface water treatment plant to process up to 5 million gallons of Potomac River water a day.

The total cost of that project was estimated to be just over $137 million.

The county is also seeking to upgrade the Mattawoman Wastewater Treatment Plant with a new storage system that would help prevent sewage overflows during heavy rains, connect water supply systems in southern Charles County with the Waldorf system and construct a new water filtration system and elevated storage tank to reclaim sewer water for use in irrigation and other needs.

The county estimates that the total cost of these three projects will be nearly $78 million.

Rounding out the county’s list was the $1.4 billion Southern Maryland Rapid Transit project that would link the Branch Avenue Metro station in Prince George’s County with White Plains via a light rail line.

Hoyer pointed out that in addition to new water and sewer projects such as those proposed by the county, the nation as a whole is also in need of funding to rehabilitate existing water and sewer systems that are aging.

“It is the tip of the iceberg,” Hoyer said, pointing to the water crisis in Flint, Mich., where inadequate water treatment following a change of water source exposed an estimated 100,000 people to elevated levels of lead.

“It’s just a real tragedy that a decision was made to save a few pennies by taking water out of the [Flint] River rather than the lake,” Hoyer said. “So water and sewer has got to be very much on the mind. And water and sewer user fees, unlike the gasoline tax, very hard because the costs are high and consumers ... really can’t afford to bear much of that cost. So that’s a real challenge for us.”

In addition to the projects presented officially to Hoyer, Bowling brought up the need for a major investment in broadband infrastructure in rural areas of the state, including western and southern Charles County.

“I stressed to Congressman Hoyer that this is a huge issue for us in Charles County,” Bowling told the Maryland Independent. “We’re highly educated, we have a pretty wealthy constituent base down here, and were growing. I think that people take for granted that they have in other jurisdictions they have internet service, they have Metro. We don’t, and so we’re trying to improve that down our way and we need help from the federal level.”

Bowling pointed out that the federal government has long supported funding for road construction. “We’re in an age now where technology is our new roadways,” Bowling said. “It’s not the only solution, but it’s part of it. How do you attract employers, businesses to the county if we don’t have this vital infrastructure in place?”

“At some point we have to lead the charge because it’s a social injustice when you have that technology gap,” Bowling said.

County planning director Jason Groth, who also attended the 90-minute roundtable, said that the meeting was an opportunity to demonstrate that the county has been strategically planning for maintaining its existing infrastructure needs as well as planning for future growth.

“These projects were not new projects that we came up with for this purpose,” Groth said. “They were projects that we already have in our capital program that we wanted to move forward because of their significant costs and perhaps [get] some help from the federal government.”

Bowling agreed, saying that the county has been pursuing partnerships with organizations like the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative and internet service providers to identify ways of solving some infrastructure challenges.

“We are out there, we are pushing our partners,” Bowling said. “We’re not just a sleepy rural county anymore.”