What happens when systems aren’t ‘go’

To quote an old land use aphorism, development goes where the sewer flows, meaning the days have long since passed when developers could build a house just about anywhere if they could plop a septic tank in the backyard to handle the bathroom waste.

Those systems seemed to work well enough as long as they were well maintained by the property owner or resident. But then we learned that these individual systems allowed pollutants such as nitrogen to seep into local waters, wastewater absorption didn’t work quite right in low-lying areas, and the easy availability of septic tanks was a big contributor to developmental sprawl.

That’s when we came to understand that highly complex and properly operated wastewater treatment systems that served entire communities were the solution.

And then there was Glen Riddle.

The Riddle Farm’s water plant and water tower went offline in 2019 when problems with the wastewater plant’s membranes began reducing the amount of flow the wastewater plant could process. It also meant that Glen Riddle would be trucking untreated sewage to the Ocean Pines plant for processing.

That burden will be lifted soon as long-promised repairs are scheduled to be completed by Thanksgiving — 11 months after the December finish date promised last year.

Obviously, no one can help it if the parts needed to make the plant operational again couldn’t be brought in immediately but given that system’s trouble over the last few years, it does beg the question, what happens to development when the sewer stops flowing or doesn’t work as it should?

Treating and transporting our waste is a highly complicated and extremely expensive proposition, and as standards inevitably become more rigid, we’re going to need better and more innovative answers to a problem that’s not going away.

It’s either that, or, as County Public Works Director Dallas Baker says, “it rolls down the street.”