The March 10th, 2026 work session of the Annerundal County Council is called to order.

Please ensure all electronic devices are in silent mode.

Do any of my colleagues have any questions before we begin?

Okay.

We would like to welcome County Executive Stuart Pittman and his team to come on up.

Thank

you.

This morning we have County Executive Stuart Pittman, Karen Henry, the director of Department of Public Works, Chief Administrative Officer Christine Anderson, and County Attorney Greg Swain.

Thank you.

Mr.

Pittman.

Thank you

for inviting me down.

It's the first time in almost eight years that I've been invited to one of these sessions.

So appreciate that.

I've got with me here Karen Henry, Department of Public Works, you all know.

And Christine Anderson, our chief administrative officer, and Greg Swain, our county attorney, to help with answering questions and talking about this moratorium.

So the first thing I want to say is that while this moratorium was necessary, it's not something that we wanted, and it's something that I have no intention of allowing to stand one day longer than is absolutely necessary.

It was Monday last week when the announcement went out.

Let me back up and say that the area we're talking about for anybody who's listening is north and west and a little bit south of BWI airport.

It's the northern part of the county, and it is a growth area for the state and the county.

It is an economic driver for the state and the county.

And while there are some folks who hear the word development and they say great, a moratorium, we got too much growth going on in our county.

And obviously it's it helps with the tax base for both this the county and the state.

So we were we were always going under the assumption for years, and all of us were that we um we could send 10.9 million gallons a day to this system, and now that is down to 4.3 million gallons a day.

You can correct me on all this if you if I if I get it wrong.

Um that's pretty drastic.

And we're talking about future flow.

So if that were to stand, we would have to divert the flow to wastewater treatment facilities that we own that we run to the south.

Potapsco is in Baltimore City.

Um that takes time to build out uh this the pump stations and the pipes to get the flow down there.

Um five years is sort of an estimate that we've been that has been shared with us.

Um that's not good enough.

Um the solution, in my view, um, comes at a higher level than the folks who have been negotiating and trying to prevent this.

This has been done at the DPW level with their peers in the other counties.

Um they um they didn't get what they asked for, they didn't get uh to continue using the average daily flow.

Um so I've been in contact with the governor.

I've been in contact with the secretaries of the environment, of commerce, of housing community development, and with my peers in all of those jurisdictions.

And and um they have particularly the governor has said um we want to help, we want to fix this.

Um Secretary of the Environment understands the importance of the economic growth in this area.

Um so I'm very optimistic that uh negotiations will get us there.

Some of those negotiations might be might be sensitive.

Um some of it is potentially asking our neighbors to uh lend us some of their future capacity that they are not likely to need in the next five years while we build out what we need to divert flow.

Um some of it might have to do with the consent order and um getting a decision that it's okay to use the average daily flow calculation.

Um there is a list that you've seen of about 10 things that we can do, um, and we have a moratorium mitigation strategy work group that is going to be convening of county folks, some of the smartest and most creative people, but the people who work in the agencies

that

that know how to implement some of these bullet points that we've sent out.

And those are much more technical.

We're talking about reducing the inflow.

There's a lot of water that goes into the wastewater treatment facility when it rains that probably should that doesn't need to be treated, but um it's in flow.

We've addressed that I think way better than most counties have, but we're going to continue to do that kind of work.

Um, looking at some of the allocations that have already been granted for development that may not actually be taking place for the in for for the for the next five years and trying to um reallocate some of that and talking to BWI about some of their capacity that may be able to be borrowed for for future.

Um, but basically we need the authority to be able to say yes to the requests for capacity from the developments that are in the pipeline.

And there are specific ones that DPW has that have already been approved, and then there's some that they know are coming that unless this is lifted, they won't be approved.

And then I think there's another set of projects that we don't even know about that that um folks are lining up financing.

So what really really um makes me have a sense of urgency about this is I've I run businesses, I've run organizations all my life, and I know that um you only get things done when you plan for them, and when you get financing for them.

And so there are projects where uh the banks, the financing um reads the newspaper and they see moratorium and they say they're not going to be able to get their their um their allocation for their wastewater, and uh then they go make other plans or they pull out.

So the the urgency on this is um is uh you know, five alarm fire.

We have to move quickly, and we are moving quickly, and it has been taking up um a big chunk of my time um in the recent days, and I know everybody at this table has been working on this and will continue to do that.

Um so it's not often that I'm uh in the council chambers with a group of real estate development folks here who've all mobilized where I agree 100% with