Find out what the City is doing to prevent sewage from entering local waterways and basements, especially during heavy rains, at today’s Second Annual Consent Decree meeting: Wednesday, Jan. 23, at 1800 Washington Blvd., headquarters of the Maryland Department of the Environment, in Baltimore.

Baltimore City Department of Public Works Director Rudolph S. Chow, P.E., invites residents and other stakeholders to attend this evening’s public meeting. The event will begin at 6 p.m. with an overview of the work covered by the Consent Decree, especially work over the past 12 months. Doors will open at 5:45 p.m. Director Chow and Paul DeSantis, DPW’s Chief of Legal and Regulatory Affairs, will deliver remarks.

At the public meeting, DPW will unveil an online interactive map that would provide real-time data on sanitary sewer overflows. DPW has been developing the online map of all known sewer overflows and hopes to make it available on its website soon. An explanation and demonstration of the map will be provided at the public meeting.

In addition, meeting attendees will receive an update on DPW’s Headworks Project at the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is expected to eliminate some 80 percent of the volume of Baltimore’s sanitary sewer overflows. This $430 million project is on-track to go into operation by the end of 2020. 

Attendees can visit individual learning stations and speak with DPW experts working on consent decree projects. Topics to be covered at the learning stations include preventive maintenance programs and the Expedited Reimbursement Program for basement backups caused by wet-weather events.

The annual public meeting is a requirement of the Modified Consent Decree that the City signed in 2017. The information presented at the meeting, as well as public comment collected during and after the meeting, will be made available on the DPW Sanitary Sewer Consent Decree webpage.

Baltimore citizens and others interested in learning about the Modified Consent Decree may learn more by visiting http://publicworks.baltimorecity.gov/sewer-consent-decree. Visitors to that page may also sign up for email notifications of important developments in the course of the Consent Decree.