Montgomery County's Ten Year Water and Sewer Plan Matters!

Update: The MCSSS is asking that a September 11 straw vote on the Water Sewer Plan at the Council be delayed - let's get the Sewer Plan right!

The Montgomery Coalition to Stop Sewer Sprawl (MCSSS) is comprised of four organizations – Watts Branch Watershed Alliance; Montgomery Countryside Alliance; West Montgomery County Citizens Association; and Conservation Montgomery. We share an interest in protecting water bodies and open space in Montgomery County, including streams and groundwater that supply us with clean drinking water; these are located in our Agricultural Reserve and low-density areas surrounding it. Our General Plan and Master Plans establish protection goals for water resource and open space protection. Continued adherence to these plans - including strictly limiting the extension of public sewer lines into rural and low-density areas - will ensure continued clean water protection for streams and groundwater. As Councilmember Marc Elrich noted in his July 12, 2018 memo to Councilmembers, “a majority of councilmembers has upheld the principle of presumption and full support for continued reliance on septic systems in the Agricultural Reserve and other low-density areas – a principle that is a foundational element in our General Plan, Master Plans, and clean water and planning laws.” ​

We expect the same council majority - Councilmembers Berliner; Hucker; Riemer; Elrich; and Navarro - to continue to support this policy, and the door remains open for other Councilmembers to join with the majority in voting for a Ten Year Water and Sewer Plan Update that codifies this approach. Yet, for reasons that elude us, the August 24 staff draft supports a very different approach - one that continues to use areawide surveys to push sewer lines into areas that don’t need them. We are writing to ask you to support the attached Montgomery Coalition to Stop Sewer Sprawl (MCSSS) clean water amendment. This supports the approach proposed by Councilmember Elrich in his July 12 memo, along with additional items proposed by MCSSS to support our clean water goals. We also ask that you reject any proposals allowing properties with functioning septic systems to be converted to sewer service. In fact, per DEP’s “RE-1 Sewer/Septic Policy Framework Evaluation” five of seven organizations that DEP contacted support our position. 

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