Construction Projects Improve Peninsula Water

Two capital improvement projects on the Broadneck peninsula will help improve water quality and availability.

On Log Inn Road, just off East College Parkway and adjacent to Sandy Point State Park, construction upgrades should start later this month at the Broadneck Water Reclamation Facility. The purpose of the project is to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus to help meet pollution limits set out in the Bay Restoration Program. With a cost of $28 million, the project is slated for completion in December 2013. 

And at the Arnold Water Treatment plant on Jones Station Road, between Church and Shirleyville roads, new wells are under construction to help reduce the county’s need to purchase water from Baltimore.

The improvements at the water reclamation site will help Anne Arundel County comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Total Maximum Daily Load. The TMDL is a pollution reduction plan to help restore water quality in Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. 

Completed at the end of last December, the TMDL requires Chesapeake Bay area states to complete watershed implementation plans outlining how best to meet their portion of required pollution reductions.

“We know that nutrients in the bay and its tributaries are doing some serious harm to water quality," said Matt Diehl, spokesperson at the county’s Department of Public Works. “The real nutrient pollution concern is from storm water runoff and private septics, but what we are doing is another way to improve what the government is legally dispensing into the waterways.” 

The Log Inn Road upgrade is one of seven “enhanced nutrient removal” projects that Anne Arundel County is pursuing as part of the Bay Restoration Program. The Cox Creek Water Reclamation Facility in Pasadena is the county’s largest wastewater treatment plant. Upgrades there were the first in a plan to upgrade all of the county’s wastewater treatment facilities. Together, the Arnold, Cox Creek and Annapolis plants account for 73 percent of the county’s wastewater capacity.

The Broadneck plant processes 6 million gallons of water daily, but will have the capability to handle 9 million gallons a day after the upgrades. The plant will also reduce nitrogen discharge by 62.5 percent. Phosphorus concentrations will be similarly reduced. 

Lead contractor on the project is Galway Bay Corp., of Pennsylvania. Much of the cost will be reimbursed through Maryland’s Bay Restoration Program. According to public works, the Broadneck and Annapolis plant upgrades will cost $41.1 million, but the county is eligible for $26.2 million back in Bay Restoration funds. That is 64 percent of the total cost.

At the Arnold Water Treatment Plant, work is three-quarters complete on a $24 million expansion project, which includes four new wells to double the capacity of the operation. 

“It is all part of an Anne Arundel County master plan from 2008 for water supply and sewer systems,” Diehl said. “The strategy is to interconnect pressure zones and optimize the water we have.”

The county has four pressure zones, one of which is in Arnold. Increasing the capacity and pressure here improves water pressure in the northern part of the county, which reduces the amount of water purchased from Baltimore. Right now Anne Arundel County buys 22 percent of its water supply from Baltimore, Diehl said. 

“We will probably never completely eliminate our need to purchase water from Baltimore, but we can greatly reduce it,” Diehl added. “We can increase our ability to get more ground water and meet the county’s demands for water.”

Work at the Arnold Water Treatment Plant should be complete by December. Flow capacity will go increase from 8 million gallons a day to 16 million gallons daily.