Frosh Warns Hogan About Lack Of Funding For State Program Overseeing Drinking Water

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BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Attorney General Brian Frosh is calling connected Gov. Larry Hogan to supply much backing for the Maryland Department of the Environment programme tasked with keeping the state’s drinking h2o proviso safe.

In a Dec. 1 letter to the governor, Frosh said the Water Supply Program overseeing 3,300 nationalist drinking h2o systems successful the authorities is some underfunded and understaffed, according to an EPA-commissioned study released earlier this year.

The consulting steadfast that authored the report, Cadmus, recovered the programme needs to turn its unit of full-time employees by 187% and wide backing by 93% to supply due oversight. There are presently 27 vacancies wrong the program, which is allotted 71 full-time positions, the study said.

Funding is abbreviated by much than $7.5 cardinal this year, and arsenic overmuch arsenic $10 cardinal by 2025, according to the report.

Staffers successful the programme person seen their workload summation with the occupation vacancies and hiring freezes, and the ongoing summation of 350 caller nationalist h2o systems, the study said.

In his letter, Frosh said the radical has to “prevent nationalist wellness crises similar the calamity we saw successful Flint, Michigan,” wherever successful 2014 lead seeped into the pat h2o supply, making the h2o unsafe to drink.

“Marylanders expect the State to guarantee our drinking h2o is safe,” Frosh said. “The EPA has warned the Administration that years of underfunding and understaffing of the Department of the Environment’s Water Supply Program person compromised its quality to behaviour capable inspections and oversight, threatening the wellness of millions of Marylanders.”

Jay Apperson, a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of the Environment, said the bureau has been moving with the EPA implicit the past respective months to code concerns astir staffing.

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“In spite of the Attorney General’s missive and attempts to politicize the matter, the state’s programs, on with partnerships astatine the section level and with EPA, are beardown and they proceed to present harmless and sustainable h2o to Marylanders,” Apperson said.