Lexington Park, MD—Two weeks ago, the State of Maryland, the St. Mary’s County Health Department, and Metcom finalized the transaction for the final connection of the Smithfield trailer park on Hermanville Road to central sewer, connecting it to the Pine Hill Run sanitary system.
The pilot project could not have been successful without the leadership of Daryl Calvano and Heather Moritz from the local Health Department who were the spark plugs that helped to ignite the project. Moritz spoke with TheBayNet.com and informed them that this is the first project of its kind in St. Mary’s County to receive grant funding. Moritz stated that they have also helped a handful of single residents connect to the public sewer system under the grant as well. Connecting Smithfield to public sewer also eliminated a major public health concern due to the condition of the previous septic system. The State of Maryland was on board through MDE with the help of a contribution from Bay Restoration Funds. This project was the first of its kind in St. Mary’s and required a great amount of planning and coordination.
In addition, Metcom board members Alice Gaskin, John Carey, and Mike Mummaugh helped jumpstart the project by voting to allow the park project to utilize 2011 capital contribution charges instead of current charges which would have made the failing systems financially unfeasible. The developer Philip H. Dorsey stated, “Without the vision of the Health Department and certain Metcom board members, public innovation and initiative would be dead on arrival.”
The folks who have benefited the most are elderly and low-income families who would have been forced to move from the facility because it was declared a “failing system.” The way the project is structured, if and when development will take place, the current capital contribution charges will be paid and Metcom will receive prevailing rates at the time of the connection.
The project has approval for up to 100 apartments and Metcom will eventually collect the full capital contribution charge, but this policy allowed for a failing system to connect to public sewer and pick up an additional 17 customers.
Bay Country Contractors did the work and provided an excellent team to construct the project on time and under budget. Debbie Settle and Chris Soussanin were on the front lines filling in the gaps on the Metcom side.
“I can’t say enough about garnering the forces of government and getting them to be on the same page. They got it right on this one even though there were several nay-sayers,” reminded Dorsey. “This is government at its best actually reaching out to help folks.”