On Monday June 19 at 7 p.m. in Wolff’s Sandwich Shop in Atlantic, Accomack County Supervisor Ron S. Wolff held his monthly constituent meeting. He invited the developer of Captain’s Cove to attend and make a presentation explaining the pending permit application for discharging treated effluent into Swan’s Gut Creek. Mr. Bob Warfield, one of three principals in the development partnership, several of his staff and civil engineer Mr. John Salm represented Captain’s Cove Group, LLC. Approximately forty-five citizens attended the meeting.
Supervisor Wolff opened the meeting shortly after 7 p.m. with a few announcements of activities in the county during the previous month and with a request that everyone attend the June 28 public hearing on the proposed interim zoning ordinance.
The Presenters
The presentation was made almost entirely by Mr. Salm. Mr. Warfield interjected frequently with clarifications of various points and to provide information about Captain’s Cove development. The case made by Mr. Salm and Mr. Warfield was clear and may be persuasive to many. It seems as though the developer has gone to great lengths to do the “right thing” within his financial constraints.
It is also useful to know that Mr. Warfield has years of experience in dealing with the issue of waste water. He is chairman of the Maryland Department of the Environment’s Bay Restoration Fund Advisory Committee. This group recommends ways to reduce nutrient loadings to state waters and identifies revenue sources for cleaning and preserving the Chesapeake Bay and Maryland's coastal bays. He has first hand, detailed knowledge and understanding about sewage treatment plants from the large ones in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. to small ones in municipalities on the Eastern Shore. He was quick to offer facts and examples throughout the presentation. Mr. Warfield is personally engaged in the Captain’s Cove project and sewer permit application. To his credit, he did not send a team of hired experts to make the case on his behalf.
Highlights of the Developer’s Presentation Explaining the Proposed Sewage Treatment Plant at Captain’s Cove.
Background on Captain’s Cove
Captain’s Cove contains 4,800 platted lots. The average size of these lots is slightly less than 10,000 square feet. That is less area than the typical one-quarter of an acre lot found in most single family, suburban developments. Captain’s Cove and Trails End were platted in the 1970s BEFORE Accomack County had implemented zoning ordinances. Today, no newly platted lot in Accomack County agricultural land may be less than 30,000 square feet.
The original developer of Captain’s Cove first launched Ocean Pines in Maryland and then opened Captain’s Cove and remained the developer of the property until three years ago. Ocean Pines began development in 1971 and is nearly built to full capacity of its 7,000 lots. At great public expense, Worcester County recently took over and improved the central sewage system in Ocean Pines. Today an outfall pipe discharges the treated effluent from Ocean Pines into Sinepuxent Bay.
When Mr. Warfield and Mr. Glick purchased Captain’s Cove they knew that the 4,800 lots did not have sufficient infrastructure to support complete development of the project. Of all the infrastructure improvements (such as new roads, new club house, and improvements to the marina) going on in Captain’s Cove, the sewer treatment plant is the most costly. However, Mr. Warfield made the point several times that he and his partners would not be the ones to bear the cost of the sewage treatment plant. Lot owners would be charged to support the operating and capital costs of the utility. Existing lot owners would be charged to connect to the proposed central sewage system.
What Does a Sewage Treatment Plant Do?
A sewage treatment plant is a factory that accepts sewage as input, processes the sewage to kill pathogens and to extract nutrients (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus). The output of the factory has two components: 1) sludge which contains solids from the waste stream and some nutrients and 2) effluent which is water that will contain some level of nutrients. The nutrient level of the effluent is entirely determined by the quality of the sewage treatment plant.
The sewage treatment plant proposed by Captain’s Cove kills pathogens and removes approximately 93% of the nitrogen in the waste water stream. The sewage is treated twice by banks of ultraviolet lights to kill pathogens. The treated water then passes through a chlorination process as a back up to the ultraviolet exposure. Then the effluent passes into holding tanks where it is acted upon by micro organisms that ingest nitrogen and excrete it as gas into the atmosphere. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the volume of our atmosphere. In its pure form, nitrogen is not considered to be an airborne pollutant. While in the holding tanks, bio-solids settle out of the wastewater and develop sludge.
Two issues dominate the discussion of a sewage treatment plant: how to dispose of the sludge and what to do with the treated effluent.
In the case of Captain’s Cove the developer has decided against trucking the sludge to a lagoon in Atlantic. He is exploring ways to sell the sludge as commercial fertilizer and turn the profits from those sales into a revenue stream to partially support the Captain’s Cove sewage treatment plant. The proposed destination of the treated effluent is Swan’s Gut Creek.
What Does a Septic System Do?
A septic system separates humans from pathogens and slowly releases untreated effluent into the groundwater. The holding tank of a septic system is technically called a “clarifier.” Its job is to allow solids to settle out of the waste stream. On occasion, septic tanks have to be cleaned of this deposited material. The effluent that enters the drain field of a septic system is not treated to remove nutrients. These ultimately flow into the groundwater and into nearby water streams.
Planning Numbers Relating to Captain’s Cove Group LLC Permit Application
- Scale of Captain’s Cove
Total number of lots in Captain’s Cove = 4,800
Total number of lots held by private owners = 3,000
Total number of lots owned by the developer = 1,800
Approximate number of houses currently built in Captain’s Cove = 637
Current number of houses hooked into the existing sewage treatment plant =237
Approximate number of houses in Captain’s Cove using septic system= 400
Approximate amount of treated effluent used to irrigate golf course = 35,000 gallons per day
- Calculating Nutrient Discharge
Sewage output of a three bedroom home = 180 gallons per day
Nitrogen output from a septic system = 10mg/liter
Annual discharge of nitrogen from all Captain’s Cove homes on septic = 107,000 pounds
Annual discharge of nitrogen from all Captain’s Cove homes if permit granted – 11,000 pounds
The difference between building out Captains Cove with individual septic systems and building out the development with the proposed central sewage treatment plant is that septic systems put an additional 96,000 pounds of nitrogen per year into the ground water.
- Flow and Volume of Swan’s Gut Creek
Proposed effluent as a percent of the volume of Swan’s Gut Creek – 2.12%
Proposed effluent as a percent of the flow of Swan’s Gut Creek <10%
Fresh water currently flowing in Swan’s Gut Creek = 10.7 Cubic feet per second
Extra fresh water flow generated by proposed effluent discharge = 1.4 Cubic feet per second
Current flow of Swan’s Gut Creek is about 10.7 million gallons per day
Planned effluent discharge rate is 180 gallons/hour
- Condemned and Prohibited Shell fishing areas
Federal regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration require a prohibited zone around a sewer treatment plant that discharges any form of effluent into a watercourse. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has no choice but to put in place a prohibited zone around the proposed Captain’s Cove discharge pipe. The size of the prohibited area is determined by federal regulations and by water sampling. Prohibited areas do not necessarily ban fishing, crabbing or swimming.
- Existing prohibited shell fishing grounds in Swan’s Gut Creek = 65.61 acres
Proposed prohibited shell fishing grounds Swan’s Gut Creek = 37.82 acres
Proposed prohibited shell fishing grounds in Chincoteague Bay = 260.69 acres
- Total prohibited shell fishing grounds – 379.31 acres
(n.b. Numbers as presented above total to 364.12 acres not the total of 379.31 stated by Mr. Salm. Source of error unknown.)
The Nitrogen Budget of the Proposed Plant
The proposed sewer treatment plant would produce 97,000 pounds of nitrogen each year when all 4,800 lots have homes built on them. This nitrogen would be discharged into Swan’s Gut Creek.
The proposed sewer plant disposes of the incoming nitrogen contained in the sewage in three ways:
1. In gas created by micro-organism during sewage treatment and discharged into the air = 88% of the total nitrogen present in the input sewage.
2. In the sludge produced during the sedimentation process of treatment = 5% of the total nitrogen in the input sewage.
3. In surface water produced as effluent and discharged into Swan’s Gut Creek = 7% of the total nitrogen in the input sewage.
Proposed System
The developer proposes to build a “Biological Nutrient Removal System” (BNR). This same type of plant is termed an “Enhanced Nutrient Removal System (ENR) in Maryland. Maryland is currently upgrading all of its municipal sewage systems to ENR plants. BNR or ENR plants achieve high levels of nutrient removal. The operating standards require no more than 3mg of nitrogen / liter of effluent and 0.03 mg of phosphorus / liter of effluent. By comparison, an individual septic system is budgeted to deliver 60mg of nitrogen/liter of effluent to the ground water.
Proposed Sewer Service Plan for the 4,800 lots in Captain’s Cove
2358 privately owned lots are potential users of the proposed sewer system
(about 400 of these lots are currently served by individual septic systems)
<+/- 600 lots may not be developed because of EPA constraints on wetlands
1605 lots owned by the developer are planned to be put on the proposed system
237 homes are currently served by the existing sewer plant at Captain’s Cove
2,358 + 600 + 1,605 + 237 = 4,800
Points Made by the Developer
1. Swan’s Gut Creek is dying with or without the proposed sewer treatment plant. The septic systems currently operating along the watershed of the creek will continue to add nutrients to the water stream. As new houses are built with in-ground septic systems the nutrient load will increase. The proposed sewer treatment plant will reduce the nutrient load into Swan’s Gut Creek and Chincoteague Bay by 96,000 pounds of nitrogen per year when Captain’s Cove is fully built with homes on all 4,800 lots.
2. Without the proposed sewer treatment plant the area of condemned and prohibited shell fish grounds in Swan’s Gut Creek and Chincoteague Bay will be expanded by the Shellfish Division of the Department of Environmental Quality. The expansion will be the result of the increased nutrient load delivered to the water system by additional individual septic systems coming on line as the development builds out to its potential size.
3. Application of the treated effluent to the land as irrigation water instead of discharging it into Swan’s Gut Creek is not financially feasible. Captain’s Cove Group, LLC does not own sufficient land to apply the effluent. To do so would require roughly 1,300 acres. They do not
have the money to purchase that amount of land. Additionally, financial constraints limit the distance over which the effluent can be pumped to a dispersal site to less than two miles.
4. Use of pre-treatment or “above ground” individual septic systems is not permitted by the County in Captain’s Cove. The developer stated that the lots are too small and the water table is too high. To create an above ground septic system requires twenty-two inches of unsaturated soil above the water table. That is not present in most of Captain’s Cove. (Note: see comments below from Supervisor Wanda Thornton on this measurement detail)
Comments Offered by Public Officials
County Supervisor Ron S. Wolff: Several times during the presentation, Mr. Wolff asked the developer questions regarding the presentation. At the close of the meeting, Mr. Wolff stated that he opposed approval of the permit and believed that the only suitable system was one that did not include an outfall pipe into any body of water. Mr. Wolff’s position stated during the meeting is that the developer must redesign the system to provide for ground dispersal of treated effluent.
Mr. E. Phillip Hickman, Accomack Planning Commission: Concurred with Mr. Wolff’s position and added that there existed, adjacent to Captain’s Cove a parcel of 5,000 acres which was both suitable for ground application and owned by someone who was prepared to make such arrangements with the developer.
County Supervisor Wanda Thornton: Ms. Thornton did not attend the meeting. However, the following day I asked her about the regulations regarding approval of individual above ground septic systems. She was adamant that the developer was in error by stating that twenty-two inches of soil above water table are required. She reported that the requirement is six inches of undisturbed soil above the water table. She further stated that she and her husband had recently installed such a system on their property and that she was thoroughly familiar with the regulations. Ms. Thornton stated that she opposed any permit application for discharge of effluent that would cause the condemnation or prohibition of shell fishing in any new areas of local waterways. She believes the developer should be required to redesign the system to provide either for ground dispersal of treated effluent or implementation of individual, above ground septic systems without reliance on construction of a new central sewage system.
The meeting concluded at 8:54
Notes Transcribed by Bill Troxler
N.B. These notes do not constitute the public record of this meeting. The information contained herein is offered in good faith, is presented as accurately as possible, is thought to be a complete account of the proceedings. These notes are intended to be a public service devoid of political commentary for those who are interested in following the activities of Chincoteague Government. Notes of the meeting are recorded, transcribed and distributed by volunteers who receive no financial compensation for their efforts.
