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A Frederick County commissioner is accusing a state delegate of attempting to derail a $98 million upgrade to the county's largest wastewater treatment plant to gain favor with developers, a charge the delegate denies.

Frederick County Commissioners President Jan H. Gardner claims that Del. Galen R. Clagett tried to persuade state officials to force the county to extend sewer lines to the recently annexed Crumland and Thatcher properties in order to receive tens of millions of dollars in loans and grants that would pay for upgrades to the plant.

Clagett made his request on Oct. 19, two days before the state Board of Public Works was scheduled to vote on the funding, a move that Gardner said could have caused the board to withhold the money.

"I was really stunned," said Gardner (D). "...It really puts the whole project at risk, and clearly he was doing this to benefit the developers."

Clagett (D-Dist. 3A) of Frederick, who is also president of Clagett Enterprises, a commercial real estate firm on North Market Street in Frederick, denied Gardner's claim, and said he has no ties to either the Crumland or Thatcher properties.

"Tell her to grow up for Christ's sake," said Clagett, who has been a strong supporter of the annexations. "How dumb does she think I am? I'm squeaky clean. Her nose is out of joint."

The City of Frederick on Sept. 3 annexed the 285-acre Crumland and 151-acre Thatcher farms on U.S. Route 15, both of which were highly controversial and subject to a failed referendum attempt.

The city and county's long-term water and sewer plans calls for it to provide sewer to development that would take place on the farms — 1,200 homes and 1.3 million square feet of commercial space— but it first needs to upgrade the Ballenger-McKinney Wastewater Treatment Plant.

That project, estimated at $98 million, has been in the works for years, and will allow the county to take 10 smaller treatment plants offline and reduce the amount of pollutants that are released into the Monocacy River and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay.

The state is loaning the county $70 million at 1.5 percent interest, and give another $31 million from the Bay Restoration Fund. The county also received a $6 million loan from the $787 billion federal stimulus package at 1 percent interest.

"While Delegate Clagett may not care for the county commissioners because we are citizen focused versus developer focused, he should be expected to work with us rather than go behind our back and risk millions of dollars and the timing of a very positive and very important county project," Gardner said.

Clagett said he merely wanted the Board of Public Works to know that the city and county's long-term plans call for the county to provide sewer to the properties.

He said his intention was not to derail the project. "No way would I do that," he said. "I respect the arrangement between the city and the county. It was not an amendment. I was just asking to have language included. No one was trying to stop anything."

He ended up withdrawing the request hours before the board met, because he realized his actions could jeopardize the project funding. He said he understands its importance. "I support this project," Clagett said. "It's a good project."

Frederick Mayor W. Jeff Holtzinger (R) is defending Clagett. "His staff did call here asking if the two properties were tied to the project," Holtzinger said Monday. "But it was never the intent of Del. Clagett to [derail the funding]."

E-mail Sherry Greenfield at sgreenfield@gazette.net.