Anne Arundel declares moratorium on sewer allocations after capacity revision

County Executive Stuart Pitman told the Anne Arundel County Council on March 10 that the county has declared a moratorium on new sewer allocations affecting the Baltimore City service area that includes parts of the corridor north and west of BWI Airport.

Pitman said the pause, effective March 2, 2026, followed a recent technical review showing the countys previously assumed downstream capacity had been overstated. "We were always going under the assumption for years ... we could send 10.9 million gallons a day to this system. And now that is down to 4.3 million gallons a day," Pitman said, calling the change "pretty drastic" and the moratorium "necessary" to avoid environmental overflows.

Why it matters: dozens of developing projects along the northern corridor, including transit-oriented housing and commercial work, rely on new allocations of wastewater capacity. Officials said projects that already hold formal allocations are protected, but pipeline and pending applications may be delayed until mitigation is in place.

Karen Henry, director of the Department of Public Works, gave a technical presentation describing the countys sewer system, the interjurisdictional agreements with Baltimore City and Baltimore County, and the choke point at the Baltimore County Patapsco pumping station and interceptor. Henry said the county historically billed and planned using average daily flow, but a 1976 interjurisdictional agreement (amended 1981) with Baltimore County measures capacity on a peak-flow basis. "We were under the understanding ... that we had about double the capacity that they're now telling us that we have," Henry said.

County officials described two parallel work streams to address the problem. First, the administration is pressing neighboring jurisdictions and state agencies to free or re-evaluate allocation rules, including asking Baltimore County or Baltimore City to temporarily lend capacity or accept a different peaking factor. Pitman said he has raised the issue with the governor and several state secretaries and is optimistic negotiations can yield relief.

Second, DPW staff will pursue technical mitigation. Henry described a "moratorium mitigation strategy" work group and a sewer diversion evaluation that will consider at least five alternatives and deliver a recommendation in about eight months. If a diversion or capital fix is selected, officials estimated implementation could take four to five years and may cost tens of millions of dollars. She gave the Piney Orchard diversion (to the Puxen reclamation facility) as an example project that cost about $38 million.

Council questions and communications concerns

Council members pressed officials about when the county first recognized the risk (Henry said a regional audit began in 2023 and Baltimore City gave a final response on Feb. 9), whether applicants had been warned, and how the county plans to prioritize allocations if capacity returns. Christine Anderson, the countys chief administrative officer, apologized for communication lapses and said staff should have paused briefly to coordinate outreach to the development community before the orange notice was issued.

Legal status and next steps

County Attorney Greg Swain said the moratorium functions as a public notice of the state of affairs and that approvals remain governed by the underlying adequate public facilities (APF) tests. "In the absence of the orange notice ... none of these projects could get an allocation," Swain said, emphasizing the moratorium documents the factual constraint and that the county believes such actions are legally defensible.

Officials said they will convene the mitigation work group immediately, pursue negotiations with neighboring jurisdictions and MDE, and begin the diverted-flow evaluation. Henry said the diversion study is high priority and will be pushed to completion in about eight months; the construction and pipe/pump work to implement a diversion will require multi-year capital investment.

What to watch: whether Baltimore County or Baltimore City can free short-term capacity or accept a revised peaking calculation, the diversion strategy due in ~8 months, and council consideration of any interim prioritization policy for queued projects.

Sources: County Executive Stuart Pitman, Chief Administrative Officer Christine Anderson, DPW Director Karen Henry, County Attorney Greg Swain (Anne Arundel County Council work session, March 10, 2026).