A Colorado company has pleaded guilty to breaking Maryland environmental laws in 2022 when it failed to take precautions while power-washing Baltimore’s “candelabra” television tower on TV Hill, sending lead paint chips raining down on the residential neighborhood below.

Skyline Tower Painting and its president, Christopher Mecklem of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, pleaded guilty to criminal violations, Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced today.

The state requested a year of incarceration, suspended, and a fine of $100,000, suspended to a $50,000 fine to be paid to the Maryland Clean Water Fund, plus three years of probation.

“These reckless actions exposed children to dangerous lead paint chips, contaminating Baltimore playgrounds, yards and even a daycare center,” Brown said in a press release.

“These guilty pleas send a clear message that we will prosecute those who endanger our communities and environment.”

Christine Sajecki, one of the residents who brought the class action suit, was underwhelmed by the size of the fine and terms of the penalty.

“That doesn’t seem like much, but it’s something!” Sajecki said tonight.

“The language in this release minimizes the outrageous volume of the chips that fell and how long they fell for,” she said. “After two years, the cleanup crew was still there five days a week.”

Brown’s press release provides some new information. The reddish-orange paint chips that sent residents into a panic three years ago were collected, tested and found to be health hazards.

One sample had a lead concentration of 19.6 mg/L, nearly four times the threshold limit considered hazardous.

• Residents in Woodberry alarmed after paint flakes from TV tower rain down on yards and streets (6/21/22)

The investigation was led by the Attorney General’s Environmental and Natural Resources Crimes Unit (ENRCU).

One of the chips had a lead concentration nearly four times the threshold limit to be considered hazardous.

Skyline Tower Painting and Mecklem pleaded guilty today before Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Jeannie J. Hong.

Mecklem, 43, pleaded guilty to two counts of improperly handling solid waste and two counts of discharging a pollutant into state waters.

The company pleaded guilty to one felony count of illegal disposal of a controlled hazardous substance.

Brown’s office said sentencing is scheduled for December 2026 to allow Mecklem to pay the fine in advance.

No Containment Measures

The structure, at 3723 Malden Avenue, looms over a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood approximately 400 yards from the Jones Falls.

A striking landmark in North Baltimore, the 888-foot triple candelabra tower is owned and operated by Television Tower, Inc. (TTI), a company owned and managed by three television stations: WBAL, WJZ and WMAR.

TTI was named, along with Skyline, in a civil suit filed in 2023 by the Maryland Department of the Environment over the incident.

The class action suit filed by residents, also naming TTI and the painting company, was recently remanded from federal court back to Baltimore City Circuit Court.

“We’re thrilled that the class action filed on behalf of the property owners was sent back from federal court, where the tower lawyers wanted it, to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, where the community wanted it,” said attorney Andrew O’Connell, from the Murphy, Falcon & Murphy law firm.

“Members of the community surrounding Baltimore’s TV Tower look forward to getting their day in court against Television Tower and Skyline Tower Painting for the harm that was done to their community and their properties,” O’Connell said in an emailed statement tonight.

Other lawsuits – against the television stations who own the tower as well as the painting company – are pending

As first reported by The Brew, Woodberry residents began noticing the distinctive paint chips turning up in their yards and on roadsides in June 2022.

According to today’s press release, on or about June 5, 2022, “Skyline used power washers to remove the existing lead-containing paint without using containment measures or vacuums.”

Videos and photographs taken by residents “showed that they were not using any containment or mechanism to collect the waste that was being generated.”

Chips generated by the crew “were dropped onto residential neighborhoods, businesses, roadways, forested areas, playgrounds, a community garden and a daycare within an approximate one-half mile radius of the tower. ”

The area is near the Jones Falls, and storm drains discharge directly into the river, which then flows into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.