File:Investing in Wastewater Infrastructure is Key to Preserving Smith Island, Maryland on 3 April 2024 - 42.jpg

English: [The following are excerpts from an April 22, 2024, story by Emily Cannon. To see the full story go to www.rd.usda.gov/newsroom/success-stories/investing-wastew...] For the video story, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENOKSw44jWM

The aging wastewater treatment facility on Smith Island , on April 3, 2024. It is severely corroded and in need of replacement. Federal, state, and local agencies collaborated on a solution: a new, modern wastewater treatment facility. Through the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program, USDA Rural Development provided the community with $83,000 in loan, and $5,000,000 in grant funds, with other partners providing the balance, to help the community afford the $22.3 million Smith Island Wastewater Treatment Facility. Expected to be completed next year, the new wastewater treatment facility will help mitigate overflow concerns and improve water quality in Merlin Gut and Francis Gut within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

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In rural communities like Smith Island, located in and along the Chesapeake Bay, aging wastewater facilities are in need of upgrades. Not only can this be an expensive problem for towns with small populations, but without the critical upgrades, the threat of combined sewer overflows from more frequent weather events and climate change could contribute to pollution of the Chesapeake Bay. Water levels in the bay have already risen one foot, with a predicted increase of 1.3 to 5.2 feet in the next 100 years. Added together, these factors create significant challenges that threaten the way of life for more than 18 million people living in, and depending on, the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

USDA Rural Development and partners are answering the call to protect the environment and preserve a way of life that impacts so many, by investing in state‐of‐the art, modern wastewater treatment facilities in communities like Smith Island and many others located throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Smith Island Wastewater Treatment Facility

Smith Island’s wastewater treatment facility consisted of two pump stations, serving the three communities that make up Smith Island: Ewell, Rhodes Point, and Tylerton. After four decades and prolonged exposure to the elements from moist marine air, the components of the wastewater treatment facility began to corrode, break down, and fail. This left the surrounding bay and wildlife vulnerable to combined sewer overflows.

Peter Bozick, Executive Vice President of George, Miles & Buhr, LLC, the engineer and architecture firm designing the new facility said, “The island is sinking slowly due to climate change and rising sea levels, and the former infrastructure was susceptible to flooding. In addition to replacing the treatment facility with new materials that can resist corrosion, we raised the pumping stations about five feet higher in order to be above the 100‐year flood zone.”

A new wastewater treatment plant is under construction next to the aged facility being replaced. The new treatment facility will significantly reduce the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus to lower levels. This is important because excessive levels of these nutrients contribute to harmful algae growth, which can block sunlight and deplete the amount of oxygen in the water.

This significant investment in improving infrastructure on Smith Island is contributing to a positive outlook for the future of Smith Island.

USDA Media by Lance Cheung.