A vocal opponent of the Harbor Point development is setting up his own air monitoring system to assess whether hazardous chemicals are released into the air during construction of the Exelon Tower.

With federal and state environmental officials poised to grant approval of the developer’s air monitoring system – thus allowing the Exelon building to break ground – Stelios Spiliadis has arranged for air monitoring equipment to be installed at his boutique hotel, Inn at the Black Olive, across Caroline Street from the site.

A team of environmental experts, led by Ana Rule of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, are setting up air monitoring devices to establish a baseline of particulate matter and chromium in the air outside the hotel.

The baseline readings will be used to assess the amount of dust and hazardous chemicals released during construction of the 650,000-square-foot Exelon building.

Piercing the Protective Cap

Developer Michael Beatty plans to pierce a five-foot-thick protective cap – which contains soil contaminated from decades of chromium production at a now-razed Allied Chemical factory – with more than 1,100 foundation piles as well as several excavation pits.

Soil that needs to be removed from the site will be transported in sealed trucks through East Baltimore streets for out-of-town disposal. Air monitors approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Maryland Department of the Environment have been installed to detect any increases in chromium or other material released into the atmosphere.

After months of study and revisions, a detailed action plan has been approved by the regulators to alert them to any spikes in air readings. The agencies are now collecting baseline samples of the air.

“Anderson Cooper has the segment on his show called, ‘Keeping Them Honest.’ I’m doing this to keep the developer and the agencies honest,” Spiliadis told The Brew.

“Neither the developer nor the government,” he complained, “has been open and honest with the community. We still have big questions that have not been answered. Before we see people getting sick, we want to make sure we have our own protection system.”

Spiliadis, a former chairman of the Planning Commission, said his environmental team will immediately notify authorities of any suspected increases in hazardous dust coming from construction, which will be several hundred yards from Fells Point (to the east) and equally close to the apartments and shops of Harbor East (to the north).

Below is a video of the monitoring project filmed and narrated by Fells Point resident Charles Cohen.

http://vimeo.com/89769275