Sewage may not have backed up in your basement during last month’s torrential rainstorm, but human waste from Baltimore surely did burble into the Jones Falls, and hence the Inner Harbor and Chesapeake Bay that day.

Speaking on Midday with WYPR’s Sheila Kast, The Brew’s Mark Reutter today talked about the 12 million gallons of raw sewage and rainwater that the city released on February 24th.

It wasn’t an accident but an intentional release, something the city promised in a 2002 consent decree to stop doing by January 1.

Reutter talked about about why the city missed its deadline to repair cracked and aging sewer lines and stop the flow of human waste into local waters.

And he addressed a question from a caller about whether the basic problem is that the city lacks the money to make the fixes.

Not really, Reutter explains on the show.

You can listen to the whole discussion, which includes Halle Van der Gaag, executive director of Blue Water Baltimore, here.

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To read more on the topic:

• What’s behind the city’s reluctance to disclose its sewage releases? Baltimore Brew

• Study finds massive unreported sewage overflows in Baltimore Baltimore Brew

• Stopping the Flood Beneath Baltimore’s Streets  Environmental Integrity Project