Residents Relieved After County Defers Water Tower Project

Ayanna Chen had a missed call and voicemail waiting on her phone just after 11 a.m. Monday, and the message was one she'd been waiting for since spring.

The caller was Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. The message was that a water tower was no longer proposed to be built on Timber Grove Road and Bond Avenue, or anywhere else in the Owings Mills and Reisterstown area.

After months of fighting the water tower through and website, locals finally were able to force the county back to the drawing board.

"There was a distinct sigh of relief," Chen said. "I have a coworker who says to me the meaning of happiness is the relief of tension, and I definitely felt some tension relief.

"It's not over yet, but this is definitely, from our vantage point, a positive turn of events."

Kamenetz told Chen in the voicemail, and , that the water tower project would be deferred because he realized the community would not be satisified with any of six proposed locations for the tower.

The project was shelved despite claims during a Thursday meeting that the water tower must be built for public safety reasons.

"According to established industry standards we need the water storage tank now," read one slide of .

Chen said she was surprised the project was indefinitely deferred given that presentation, but wasn't willing to completely doubt the county's previous assertion that the water storage was necessary.

"We’re not debating whether there's a need or not," she said. "That issue still is not resolved. We’re hoping that the state can help the county find a solution that doesn’t intrude on people’s lives and impact people’s futures."

For now, Baltimore County still owns the property at the corner of Timber Grove Road and Bond Avenue, bringing that site's future into question.

"We don’t want a parking lot where they park the school buses," said Bonnie Levitt, another member of the tower's opposition group. "I think at this point that Kamenetz’s office and [Department of Public Works] are in the right frame of mind.

"They can really sit down with us, their constituents, and come up with something to do with this land, whether to leave it like it is -- which isn’t a bad thing … or do something fruitful for it that the people can use and that will be aesthetically pleasing."

Levitt said her phone, overloaded with calls about the news, hadn't rung so much since she gave birth to her son.

She said she didn't expect the county would shift course so quickly but credited local representatives for keeping the interest of the community in mind.

"[County Councilwoman] Vicki Almond is spectacular; we are quite lucky to have her," Levitt said. "She went out on a limb, as did [State Senator] Bobby Zirkin.

"The county is to be commended because they did listen to everybody. They came around and they admitted that this is the right thing to do."

Read about elected officials' reactions here.