Delay granted in wastewater dispute with Sparrows Point

Baltimore’s treated wastewater will continue to flow through two pipelines at Sparrows Point, at least through the winter.

A temporary restraining order set to expire Thursday before a hearing in U.S. District Court in Baltimore has been extended through April 4 as the sides continue to try to work out a settlement.

“The extended length of time requested is due to the complexity of the engineering issues in involved in the medium-term and long-term solutions that the parties are attempting to solve through negotiation,” Michael Schatzow, a lawyer for the city, wrote late last month in a letter to Judge James K. Bredar.

Schatzow is a partner at Venable LLP in Baltimore.

Bredar rescheduled the hearing on the temporary restraining order for April 3.

The order allows the city to continue sending up to 40 million gallons per day of treated wastewater to Sparrows Point from the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant. The wastewater, which was once used in steelmaking, has flowed to Sparrows Point for at least 70 years.

Sparrows Point LLC, which agreed to continue to let the city keep using the pipelines for a year in September 2012 for $80,000 a month, sought to terminate that agreement two months ago. It argued that the city breached the contract, in part, by not paying on time, to the point that Sparrows Point began sending monthly invoices.

Sparrows Point filed a counterclaim last month seeking a declaratory judgment that the city breached its contract and that the contract is no longer in effect, along with damages caused by complying with the temporary restraining order.

Lawyers for the city have countered that the contract was never breached and that Sparrows Point was pursuing “extortionate demands.” Without the Sparrows Point pipelines, all effluent from 1.3 million city and county residents would be discharged into the Back River and lead to environmental violations, the city has alleged.