Other states pollute bay but don’t pay a ‘flush tax’

I found this letter to the editor of the Cumberland Times today and found it appealing:

To the Editor:
Cumberland Times-News

Our legislators decided to clean up the bay with federal money. Every resident in this state pays a “flush tax” bill. The flush tax has been one of Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s key legislative accomplishments.

The environmentalists have “cheered” it because it provides a means to reduce pollution from sewage treatment plants, which are key sources of nutrients that spur algae growth and, in turn, rob oxygen from bay water.

Three cities on the Eastern Shore have benefited from this tax. They are Elkton, Kent Island, and St. Michaels. Elkton officials reversed a policy against annexing land for development as soon as the town received $7.5 million from the Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Restoration fund, which provides grants for sewage treatment improvements paid for by the tax.

A few days later, Elkton’s mayor signed an agreement allowing 2,500 homes to be built on cornflelds, wetlands, and woods next to a bay tributary. Everyone knows sewage rolls downhill. The sewage of the citizens, who live beyond the Continental Divide in Garrett County and are on septic tanks, flows into the Mississippi.

Senator George Edwards has informed me that the state of West Virginia is the biggest contributor of pollution to the bay.

The state of Pennsylvania has two sewer rivers running to the bay. Three dams are located on one of these rivers. The environment has estimated approximately 250 million tons of sludge has accumulated in these dams and nothing has been done yet to correct this problem.

I asked our western Maryland legislators these two questions: 1) If the surrounding states, which have contributed to the pollution of the bay pay no tax, then why do the citizens of Maryland? 2) What type of fraud or extortion is this? These questions have never been answered.

It saddens me to watch the arrogant spending of our tax dollars. I believe all of our politicians are out of control. What has happened to the common sense? Remember one thing, 150 years ago Jesse James stole with a six-gun and behind a mask. In today’s society our politicians do it with an ink pen and a smile and call it “taxes.”

What a joke we have become.

Edward Evans

Potomac Park


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