“What you’re hearing is a lot of frustration,” said Harry Wujek, president of the North Point Peninsula Community Coordinating Council, summing up the sentiments of about 30 people attending last night’s hearing on the status of environmental work at the Sparrows Point steel mill.

Some expressed disappointment – others flashes of anger – when told by Andrew Fan, project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that developing a plan for sampling offshore mill contamination was still a year from starting and that a human health risk assessment is not expected to be completed until 2012.

“No backdoor deals – they have to clean up,” exclaimed Guido Guarnaccia, a Back River resident who instigated a citizens’ suit that led to the 1997 consent decree between Bethlehem Steel Corp. and EPA and the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to clean up decades of pollution at the steel mill.

Fan indicated that the biggest challenge facing regulators is containing a “very large hydrocarbon plume” that lies underneath an abandoned coke-oven facility.

Calling the plume “very similar in composition to the oil spill in the Gulf Coast,” the viscous slick, with high levels of benzene and naphthalene, has seeped into the groundwater and is now migrating into Baltimore’s Outer Harbor and toward Bear Creek.

As reported last November by the Brew, EPA and MDE were aware of the spreading plume since 2005, when it was disclosed in a study by an environmental consultant, URS Corp.

Samples found benzene levels as high as 158,000 times above EPA’s standard for drinking water. But it was not until February 2009 that EPA told current mill owner Severstal to undertake corrective action.

This month, Severstal installed the first of six remediation cells that Fan estimated would recover “a few thousand gallons” of benzene and naphthalene vapors per month by July 2011.

His remarks led David Janiszewski to ask, “Why only six cells? Why not 20?”

Fan did not respond.

Bear Creek resident Bill Pribyl expressed frustration at EPA’s lack of zeal. “Jesus, fix it. Time is critical. I want to see these problems fixed in my generation. But I don’t see that here. And that’s shocking.”

New Landfill Sought

Annoyance was followed by astonishment when the audience was told that Severstal filed an application last week for a new industrial landfill at Sparrows Point.

The disclosure came as part of a discussion about Greys Landfill, an unlined landfill that was “grandfathered” into the consent decree.

Barbara Brown, an MDE official, said the landfill has undergone many improvements, including new berms and stormwater storage basins, but acknowledged that several monitoring wells around the landfill’s perimeter have detected elevated levels of hazardous chemicals.

Gloria Nelson, a resident of Turners Station, appeared stunned. “We live right across Bear Creek from this landfill. We did not have any input on the landfill as we saw it materialize.”

She and other residents had been under the impression that the landfill did not leak. “Now I hear there is leakage. This leakage may be going into Bear Creek. How is it that MDE knows this, and now the company wants to be permitted an additional landfill?” She shook her head in disbelief.

Louis Konopacki, who crabs on Bear Creek, complained that Greys Landfill routinely emits foul odors. Mitch McCalmon, an MDE official, invited residents to file complaints with MDE if they smelled anything bad, promising a vigorous investigation.

Severstal to Involve Community

Russell Becker, an environmental engineer for Severstal, did not comment on the odors, but stated that the proposed landfill would be lined and include various protections against the leaching of chemicals.

He said Severstal is committed to involving the community in the planning process. A new landfill would allow the phase-out and permanent capping of Greys Landfill, which will reach its legal height of 140 feet in about four years.

The timing of Severstal’s application baffled state Senator Norman R. Stone.

“This is a company that’s cutting back on production, laying off people and importing steel from overseas. Now it wants to put in a new landfill? I just don’t get it,” he commented after the meeting.

– Reach Mark Reutter at reuttermark@yahoo.com.