Maxine Thompson and Phyllis Seward by Bear Creek. Photo by Mark Reutter.

by MARK REUTTER

      Phyllis Seward is not surprised by the Maryland Port Administration pollution study showing that Turners Station is the community most affected by contaminated water coming from Sparrows Point. Born and raised there, Seward has watched her community’s quality of life deteriorate under a pall of pollution.

     “We’ve been bombarded by land and sea for years — no, make that decades,” Seward said.

     Turners Station, tucked into the southwest corner of Dundalk, is dwarfed by the steel mill that looms to the east on Bear Creek. The mill is the reason for the community’s existence and has been the cause of much of its distress, according to Seward.

     “I’ve seen our beaches close and watched fish die,” she said. “The whole marine atmosphere has changed.”

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Sparrows Point outfall 021: benzene found in nearby groundwater was 158,000 times above federal drinking water standards. Photo by Mark Reutter

by MARK REUTTER
     Dangerously high levels of benzene and naphthalene, both carcinogens, have been leaking into Baltimore harbor for the last eight years from an abandoned facility at the Sparrows Point steel mill, according to reports by the mill’s own environmental consultant. These reports were found in records examined by The Baltimore Brew under the Maryland Public Information Act.

     State and federal regulators have been aware of this groundwater contamination since at least 2005, according to the records. But the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) only recently began to take steps to curb it. Actual containment of the pollution is many months, if not years, away from completion, MDE officials said.

     Last February, federal officials expressed alarm at the amount of contaminants going into Baltimore harbor via the groundwater seepage. “In certain hot spots, the measured groundwater concentrations exceed 100,000 times the Maximum Contaminant Level for benzene and 1,000 times the MCL for naphthalene,” wrote Abraham Ferdas, an administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

     Benzene, a highly flammable liquid in its natural state, was also found in harbor water that flows into the Chesapeake Bay, a particular cause for concern to EPA officials.

     “The fact that benzene is measurable in the bay water is an indication that the pollutant loading rate from the Facility [Sparrows Point] is significant,” Ferdas wrote. “Typically, volatile organic compounds are rarely detectable in open water due to mixing, dilution and agitation of the large volume of receiving water.” Read the rest of this entry »