Maryland Department of the Environment Says It Needs More Staff to Do What the Law Requires
“We need an agency that’s focused on holding polluters accountable. And right now because they’re not inspecting and enforcing is allowing these violations not only to go on for a long time but to continue to get worse,” said Betsy Nicholas, executive director of Waterkeepers Chesapeake, an environmental nonprofit.
“Our water quality continues to get worse not because Marylanders haven’t invested in clean water,” she said, “but because there are a few extreme violators out there. And the MDE is not doing anything to stop them.”
Nicholas said that this disproportionately impacts lower income communities of color, whose water and sewer bills have increased dramatically because they’re paying to get toxic contamination out of their water. “And that is just simply unfair,” she said.
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