Around Maryland

Maryland Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles on Sunday said the Maryland Environmental Service would temporarily take control of Baltimore City’s Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant, the site of ongoing illegal discharges into the river. Grumbles said the city had failed to comply with a previous state order to immediately end illegal discharges of water pollution into the river.

Preparing for a trip to the bank, Marlon Mayorga, the owner of a small convenience store on Patapsco Avenue in South Baltimore, counted cash in the otherwise empty business early one morning. As he counted, a person in a hoodie and with their face covered entered the front door, turned toward the counter, pulled out a gun and demanded the cash. The robbery last month at La Bodeguita in Brooklyn is among 714 robberies recorded in the city so far this year. That’s a 24.6% increase, from 573 at the same time last year, according to latest available data from the Baltimore Police Department.

Annapolis’ Carr’s Beach, and the more laid-back Sparrow’s Beach, were regular destinations for Black families who were forbidden to visit whites-only beaches up and down the East Coast during segregation from the 1940s to the 1970s. As a teenager in the 1960s, George Trotter would pile into his uncle’s Studebaker with his siblings and other kids from the Old Fourth Ward in Annapolis and head down to Carr’s Beach.

The speed cameras that were installed on Interstate 83 to help reduce crashes on one of Baltimore’s busiest thruways aren’t up to speed just yet, officials said. The city is still putting the pieces in place before activating the cameras and launching a 90-day grace period for drivers before issuing tickets, said Marly Cardona-Moz, spokeswoman for the Baltimore Department of Transportation. This includes installing signage, speed sensors and testing.

The Anne Arundel County Public Schools community is concerned about transportation, retaining leaders of color and the system’s ability to address the academic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey released Thursday by the Board of Education said. The survey was completed as part of the school board’s search for a new superintendent. The district declined to renew the contract of George Arlotto, who has served in the school system’s top executive since 2014. A new superintendent or an interim superintendent must be in place by July 1.

In the two months since Maryland filed suit against Baltimore City over sewage treatment failures at its two wastewater plants, problems have worsened at the Back River site — prompting state environmental officials to issue an order demanding the facility be brought into compliance within 48 hours. “If the conditions of my order are not met, I will not hesitate to take further appropriate actions,” Maryland Secretary of the Environment Ben Grumbles said in a statement Thursday.

The Environmental Integrity Project claims 97% of Delaware rivers and streams are too polluted for both water recreation and aquatic life. The Clean Water Act at 50 report, released March 17, lists Delaware among the worst in the nation in terms of miles polluted by illegal runoff of fertilizer, other contaminants, and algae blooms dangerous to both humans and fish.