| Who’s for a South County Development Corp.?
Dear Bay Weekly:
This is the moment to share visions for Southern Anne Arundel County. Safeway continues to flog its proposal for a complex in Deale — a killer project for moderate growth in the area in the view I share with many. The Deale-Shady Side Small Area Planning group has introduced its conclusions. The South County Small Area Planning Committee holds its forum May 9.
Bay Weekly’s editorial “How We Think” [April 6-12] reported from a recent poll by the Anne Arundel Community College Center for the Study of Local Issues that growth is the “biggest single concern” in the county.
There will be economic growth in South County, Safeway or not — and should be. But what will it look like? What do we South Countians want it to look like?
What about forming a South County Development Corporation as a non-profit enterprise to explore those questions and encourage the establishment or expansion of business and professional endeavors that fit the answers?
What about South County as a center of Internet-related enterprises, which would bring good jobs and make moderate use of land but also give us access to the world as our market? How about encouraging telecommuting from home or from our equivalent of the Calvert Telecommuting Center also described in your April 6 paper?
Our cosmic wonder may be our greatest ally in presenting South County as a place for smart, clean growth.
—Chris May, Deale
Drinking Water Week
Dear Bay Weekly:
Americans are fortunate to have clean, safe and abundant drinking water. The same cannot be said elsewhere in the world.
On May 10, Anne Arundel County Executive Janet Owens, the county Department of Public Works and 120 fourth grade students from Crofton Meadow Elementary School will celebrate National Drinking Water Week at the Crofton Meadows Water Treatment Plant. The plant is but part of the system that delivers 12 billion gallons of clean, fresh, delicious tap water to more than 350,000 county residents each year.
The students will tour the treatment plant, participate in the Junior Smart Water Saver program and, we hope, develop an appreciation for the tap water that we all take for granted. At 1:30pm, County Executive Owens will officially proclaim Drinking Water Week in Anne Arundel County. The public is welcome to attend.
The Department of Public Works began working with the public health community to safeguard our drinking water supplies long before the 1974 federal Safe Water Drinking Act. Today, we conduct more than 40,000 tests annually looking for hundreds of potential drinking water contaminants. We strive to keep customers informed of the results by providing an annual report, known as a Consumer Confidence Report, to help them understand what is, and is not, in their tap water and what that means for their health.
The employees of the Department of Public Works are confident that they and the citizens of Anne Arundel County are up to the challenges of our growing population and growing demands on our water supplies.
—John M. Brusnighan,
Director, AACo. Department of Public Works
Copyright 2000
Bay Weekly
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