UPDATE: Officials meet for 2025 Watershed Implementation Plan Phase III

Officials from across the Maryland Eastern Shore got together as part of the state's 2020 Watershed Implementation Plan on Thursday. 

The plan details how to properly manage storm water, waste water and septic systems so that less nitrogen and phosphate pours into the Chesapeake Bay. Those are two major elements that have negatively impacted the bay for years. 

"Back in the early the 80s, the science was telling us that the bay was impaired," said the Maryland Department of Environment Assistant Director, Matthew Rowe. 

"There was a partnership effort among all the states in the bay watershed that was really a voluntary effort to try to restore water quality, but it really wasn't getting us far enough or fast enough," said Rowe. 

For Dorchester County, their biggest concern is their water treatment plant. 

"Our concerns in our town is that our wastewater treatment plant is a 1972 lagoon system, and that it's not going to be able to be upgraded to meet the new requirements on the phosphorus and nitrate levels that they were discussing today," said the Mayor of Secretary, Susan Dukes. 

Dukes thinks the town will not be able to meet those requirements on time. 

She said the town is 90 percent done with the design phase of a new plant, but they're looking for funding to actually build it. 

"It's important that we get our new plant, so I'm here also to try to interact and maybe find some additional funding to make sure that we can go forward and get the new plant funding and get up and running," said Dukes. 

The town hopes to build the new plant within the next two years.