For the past decade, residents and their advocates have pleaded with the city to do more to help them deal with a surge in sewage overflows – “volcanoes” of raw human excrement erupting from Baltimore toilets, sinks and drains thanks to deteriorating municipal infrastructure.

Two Department of Public Works programs – one providing direct clean-up assistance, the other providing reimbursement for clean-up costs paid out-of-pocket – have had such tight eligibility rules and were so poorly publicized that thousands of people every year were still struggling on their own to recover from the health-harming basement overflows.

Last week the Brandon Scott administration announced it was making one of the changes residents have sought for years – and that the city resisted, even after a 2023 order by state and federal environmental officials:

Baltimore has now expanded the direct assistance program (known as the Sanitary Onsite Support, or SOS, program) so that it covers any sewage backup caused by city-owned infrastructure rain or shine.

(The program previously sent contractors to clean up after wet weather-related overflows, even though most overflows happen during dry weather as a result of crumbling pipes and other infrastructure failures.)

“It’s really, really good news. We’ve been demanding this policy change since 2017, so this is really exciting,” said Jennifer Kunze, of Clean Water Action Maryland. “But there is definitely some nuance and things the city still needs to do.”

Also hailing the announcement was Alice Volpitta, of Blue Water Baltimore, though she was a bit more blunt.

“The expedited reimbursement program (ERP) has been an abject failure in its ability to help residents,” she declared, at a City Council hearing last Wednesday on the overflow cleanup issue.

Volpitta had begun her remarks by thanking the mayor for expanding the program (his office announced it hours before the hearing) and lauding community members she described as “staunch advocates who have made this program possible.”

Only 0.3% was spent

What Volpitta was highlighting was the city’s half-hearted management of the sewage assistance programs, which have provided only a fraction of the clean-up help needed. She used data on the city’s other sewage assistance program, the ERP, to illustrate her point.

Created in 2017 to comply with the federal government’s Modified Consent Decree compelling the city to end sewage releases, the program still only provides reimbursement for expenses related to wet weather overflows that occur on the city side of the line, caps payments at $5,000, and was never well publicized.

“From 2018 through 2026, when there were over 47,000 calls for assistance to 311 for sewage backups, DPW only received 340 applications for assistance through the reimbursement program,” Volpitta said.

What was actually spent during that time, she pointed out, was only 0.3% of the $16 million the city was required under the consent decree to be set aside for the program.

A major publicity campaign for the program is badly needed, she argued.

“At a bare minimum, this program should be advertised on TV, in newspapers, social media, newsletters, and through water bill inserts,” she asserted.

Kunze noted that the number of sewer back-ups caused by issues with city infrastructure has decreased, going from almost 2,500 in 2021, to 1,200 in 2025, adding “that’s still 1,200 too many.”

All of those households will be eligible for direct assistance, as a result of last week’s policy change, “but will they find out about it?” she said, calling for it to be better advertised as well.

Not only should both programs be better advertised, both should have the same rain-or-shine eligibility requirements, she told The Brew.

“Stinky, chaotic mess”

Other members of the public who testified at the Wednesday hearing had a similar message.

Clean-up and support programs “should be flexible and more inclusive than not,” Marccus Hendricks, an associate professor of architecture and planning at the University of Maryland said, urging the council and the mayor “to remain open-minded, expansive, and inclusive.”

“We all know that these overflows and backups have been progressive and ongoing for over two decades or more,” Hendricks continued. “They pose a risk not only to public health, but deeply impact the overall quality of life for residents.”

• A Baltimore Sewage Saga: It started in the toilet, migrated to the refrigerator, then got worse (10/21/24)

• Sewage overflows and basement backups persist in Baltimore despite federal consent decree (1/18/24)

• Bill calls for study of expanding Baltimore’s sewage reimbursement program (6/20/21)

What is the impact of human excrement in a Baltimore basement? Belair-Edison’s Crews described it vividly.

“You have stinky, messed up furniture, you have broken tiles, you have broken pipes – I mean, it’s just a chaotic mess,” she testified, describing the particular hardship basement sewage poses for older community members.

“Their insurance covers just a small amount, and they need their social security and pension to live on to buy food, you know, and clothing,” she said, urging the city to “please put more funding into these programs.”

How to reach residents?

DPW director Matthew Garbark acknowledged that the SOS direct assistance program has reached few residents, with just 53 basements cleaned between FY 21 and FY 26. The agency will start to publicize the program with billing inserts and other outreach, he promised.

As a pilot, he said, DPW quietly began the program in July, calling anyone who reported a basement backup to let them know about the looser  eligibility requirement. But a slide he presented showed 75% of those called never answered the phone.

“People are not answering their phones these days and with good reason. There’s a lot of scams out there,” Councilwoman Odette Ramos pointed out, asking “Will somebody just come out and knock on the door and say ‘I’m from DPW?’”

Garbark said they would look into it.

Committee chair Phylicia Porter wanted to know why one of Garbark’s slides said residents must report a backup to 311 within 48 hours to be eligible for the reimbursement program.

She pointed out that DPW officials announced in 2020 that they were dropping that restriction. Garbark again said he would look into it.

“People just live with it”

Data presented by the agency showed the reimbursement program continues to be scarcely used, primarily because of the wet weather restriction. In fiscal 2025, all 59 requests for assistance were deemed ineligible. In FY 26, all but one of the 47 requests were deemed ineligible.

Councilman Paris Gray, who represents West Baltimore and has championed the sewer backup issue, asked why the wet weather restriction could not be lifted for this program as well.

Garbark noted that the reimbursement program, unlike the direct assistance program, was created as part of the consent decree “so it has to go through the state and federal government.”

“That’s not true. There’s nothing stopping the city from going beyond the consent decree,” Kunze told The Brew, pointing out instances where the city has already done so, such as raising the reimbursement cap from $2,500 to $5,000. “The consent decree is a floor, not a ceiling.”

Gray, who personally experienced five sewer backups, applied for help through the program but said “so many don’t even know it exists.”

“You have people buying dry vacs and wet vacs, families putting down tarp. People just live with it if they’re elderly,” he said.

And among residents who do apply for help, “a lot of folks are still being denied their claims.”