Thurmont and Brunswick Wastewater Plants
Get New Nutrient Limits

Potomac Basin Reporter, Vol. 62, No. 4, July/August 2006/ICPRB

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Wastewater treatment plants serving the towns of Brunswick and Thurmont are the first to receive renewed permits that include stringent new requirements for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus in Maryland.

The two Frederick County plants had permits up for renewal and the new nutrient caps were added as part of the state’s Enhanced Nutrient Removal Strategy, a major component of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy.  The recently finalized permits go beyond previously announced strategies and require the plants to achieve annual concentrations of no greater than four milligrams per liter (mg/l) of total nitrogen and 0.3 mg/l total phosphorus.

The new limits were developed by the Maryland Department of the Environment as part of an agreement among the agency, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and the Maryland Association of Municipal Wastewater Agencies.

The facilities are two of the 66 major wastewater plants (discharging one-million or more gallons per day of effluent) targeted by Maryland’s Bay Restoration Fund, passed last year to upgrade plants to very advanced levels of nutrient removal.  Nutrients from all sources will need to be greatly reduced if the region is to meet cleanup goals for the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, of which the Potomac is second-largest.