MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT WATER AND SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION NOTICE OF FINAL DETERMINATION Worcester County Application for State Discharge Permit, 21DP2864: Mayor and Council of the Town of Berlin, 10 Williams Street, Berlin, Maryland, 21811, submitted an application to renew a permit to discharge a yearly average of 750,000 gallons per day of treated domestic wastewater to ground waters via two spray irrigation systems located at (1) Outfall 001- 9607 Lee Road, Berlin, Maryland (400,000 gallons per day) and (2) Outfall 002 – Bounds Property, 7303 Five Mile Branch Road, Newark, Maryland (350,000 gallons per day). On October 31 and November 7, 2024, the Maryland Department of the Environment published a Notice of Tentative Determination to reissue the permit. MDE received significant comments from the Permittee on the tentative determination. After considering all comments received, the Department has made the determination to reissue the permit with the following changes from the tentative permit: Special Conditions I.C.4 and I.D.4 have been appended to exempt the Permittee from the Maryland Nutrient Management Manual winter application prohibitions.The permit will require PFAS sampling in a total of 10 monitoring wells (1 upgradient and 4 downgradient wells from each outfall) with two definitive samplings of PFAS compounds in the first 12 months. The Town will have 60 days from the effective date of the permit to propose the monitoring well locations intended for PFAS sampling to the Department. MDE added a link to the most up-to-date PFAS compound testing protocol. Special Condition I.H.7 (Special Condition I.H.6 in the tentative determination) has been revised to require Department notification when the latest sampling results show that two consecutive PFAS results exceed the action level set by the Department which may trigger a permit modification to address the exceedances. Special Condition I.H.8 (Special Condition I.H.7 in the tentative determination) has been revised to allow the Permittee to petition the Department for a frequency reduction or discontinuation of PFAS monitoring if the first three effluent or groundwater monitoring results are below the action levels set by the Department. Special Condition I.C.4 has been revised to reflect Outfall 001 lagoon’s as-built storage capacity via a three-foot freeboard requirement. MDE has incorporated the above responses and made the final determination to reissue the discharge permit. All other terms and conditions remain unchanged from the tentative determination. Persons wishing to review the proposed final permit may do so by contacting the Maryland Department of the Environment, Water Management Administration, 1800 Washington Blvd., STE 455, Baltimore, Maryland 21230-1708, and Attn: Ms. Mary Dela Onyemaechi, Groundwater Discharge Permits Division or by calling (410) 537-3106 to make an appointment. Copies of documents may be obtained at a cost of $0.36 per page. Any person adversely affected by this final determination may file a petition for judicial review. Petitions for judicial review of a final determination or permit decision subject to judicial review must be filed in accordance with § 1-605 of the Environment Article no later than 30 days following publication by the Department of this notice of final determination and must be filed in the circuit court of the county where the permit application states that the proposed activity will occur. Per MD Environmental Article § 1–602(a)(2), an EJ score was calculated for this facility. The EJ Score is 45.20. This score has been calculated considering a combination of the following factors: Pollution Burden Exposure Percentile, Pollution Burden Environmental Effects Percentile, and Sensitive Population Percentile. For more information on how the score was calculated, launch the MDEnviroScreen tool from this website - https://mdewwp.page.link/EJ. Any person adversely affected by this final determination may request a judicial review. The judicial review must be filed no later than March 23, 2026 in the circuit court of the county where the activity will occur. Persons wishing to review the final permit may do so by contacting Mrs. Mary Dela Onyemaechi, Chief, Groundwater Discharge Permits Division at 410-537-3106 to make an appointment. Copies of documents may be obtained at a cost of $0.36 per page. February 12 and 19, 2026