Maryland State Wire

Gov. Larry Hogan is upset about the sediment and debris pouring into the Chesapeake Bay after severe rainfall.

Elvia Thompson, co-founder and president of Annapolis Green, said Hogan is outraged by the amount of debris showing up in the Bay.

"The governor is livid about this and plans to or has contacted the State of Pennsylvania and Exelon to discuss taking on some of the cost," Thompson said in an interview with Maryland State Wire.

Thompson said Annapolis, Anne Arundel County and the state have all had to pay personnel to do the cleanup.

"You could argue that these were personnel already onboard that were just taken away from other, regular duties, but I’ll bet there were overtime costs incurred," Thompson said. "There were many citizen volunteers involved, too."

Mark Shaffer, the communications director with Maryland Department of the Environment, said the agency was in the formative stages of compiling information regarding the issue. Hogan wants states upstream of the Chesapeake Bay to step up and take responsibility. There have been trees, tires and garbage floating in the Bay, which he claims are from Pennsylvania and New York. When there is a heavy storm, sediment and debris travel over the Conowingo Dam and into the bay, Hogan said at a public works meeting this month

Hogan, who also chairs the Chesapeake Bay Council has been very vocal about his feelings with the trash flowing into the bay since before taking office in 2015.

The executive council met last week, where Hogan was elected to continue as chairman. At the meeting, a Pennsylvania official agreed that the state was behind in its efforts to fix runoff problems into the Susquehanna River, according to the Baltimore Sun.

The council consists of governors from six bay watershed states, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the mayor of Washington, D.C.