Crisfield to receive more than $3 million from EPA for water infrastructure projects

CRISFIELD, Md. – The city of Crisfield’s wallet just got a little bigger, after officials received more than $3 million from The Environmental Protection Agency in order to complete three very critical water infrastructure projects in the area. Officials in Crisfield say they’ve been working around the clock to get the funding they need to fix their sewage and draining systems in the city.

“Our sewer system has a lot of problems with the collection lines being old and leaking, our pumping stations are kind of at the end of their useful life,” said city manager Rick Pollitt.

Officials say so far they’ve been able to get close to $1 million in funding from the Maryland Department of the Environment for their water infrastructure projects, and with the additional funding they just received from the EPA they’re close to getting construction underway sooner than they thought.

“We are delighted, it’s more than $4 million altogether that’s needed and this is going to provide the great majority of that,” said Pollitt.

Pollitt says it’s crucial that the town fixes its sewage issues as soon as possible.

“It takes up much-needed capacity at the sewer treatment plant it doesn’t pay us to be treating ground water and rain water that leaks into the system it’s an expensive process to begin with so we’d like to only treat the the things are supposed to be in the lines,” said Pollitt.

And although still in it’s beginning stages, Pollitt says this recent funding will create a brighter future for the city of Crisfield.

“It’s going to be good for Crisfield from an infrastructure standpoint it’s going to be incredibly good for the environment and it’s going to reduce any potential for hazardous spills and back ups,” said Pollitt.

Pollitt adds that the city will begin planning for the projects within the next couple of months, and if everything goes as planned the project should be done in a year or two.