by MARK REUTTER
     Environmental regulators are asking the Sparrows Point steel mill to prepare final cleanup procedures at three sites where chemical wastes have been buried for decades. Although the sites were part of a court-ordered cleanup in 1997, this is the first time regulators are requiring corrective measures, rather than open-ended studies, to handle the waste.

     The directive, however, does not address pollution leaking from the sites into Baltimore Harbor, raising the hackles of critics who say such “off-site” cleanup is required under the 12-year-old consent decree signed by Bethlehem Steel Corp., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE).
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Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

by MARK REUTTER

     A widely anticipated Maryland Port Administration study mapping pollution coming from the Sparrows Point steel mill confirms that cancer-causing benzene has infiltrated Baltimore harbor and may have migrated to shorefront communities through harbor currents and tides.

     The report, dated Nov. 2009, has not yet been posted on the agency’s website or publicly released. The Brew obtained a copy from sources.
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by MARK REUTTER

     The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is again threatening to sue environmental regulators and Severstal North America if action is not taken against illegal discharges of cancer-causing benzene and other pollutants into Baltimore harbor.

     Jon A. Mueller, CBF’s director of litigation, criticized state and federal agencies for not insisting that immediate measures be taken to stop the flow of toxic chemicals from the Sparrows Point steel mill. Mueller was responding to Severstal’s claim, reported last week in the Brew, that it was not responsible for investigating or cleaning up so-called “historical contamination” from the plant.

     “If the state and federal government fail to act in a timely way,” Mueller said, “we will be forced to take action.”

((Listen to Mark discuss our Sparrows Point coverage at 9 am tomorrow ( Tuesday) on Sheilah Kast’s Maryland Morning show, on WYPR FM.))

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by MARK REUTTER

     Faced with potentially huge environmental costs, Severstal North America has told regulators that it is not responsible for investigating or cleaning up Sparrows Point-related pollution that entered Baltimore harbor before the company purchased the steel plant in May 2008.

     The company’s objections threaten to delay action to reduce high levels of cancer-causing benzene that are being discharged into the harbor. Regulators say they do not expect the matter to be resolved until next month at the earliest. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »