Harford County plans to buy 24 undeveloped lots in the Forest Greenssubdivision near Perryman because the land, where methane and lead recently have been detected, was once a county dump site.
JeffersonBlomquist, deputy county attorney, said the former dump was discovered in November 1990 when Mallard Landing Joint Venture, a developer, began preparing ground for home construction.
"The subdivision was approved to actually be built on a landfill,but it wasn't discovered until the contractor installing utilities and roads started digging up trash," said Blomquist. "We told him he couldn't build houses on landfill and ordered the work to be stopped."
He said tests ordered by the county detected the presence of methane gas in some lots and the presence of lead in the soil on some of the 24 lots.
Tests also showed that existing homes along Seagull and Heron roads are not endangered by the methane and lead found at the former county landfill site, Blomquist said.
"There's no imminent health risk to people already living there, and it doesn't pose a risk to the ground water," said Blomquist, adding that the housing development is on the county's public water system anyway.
The countyordered the tests after Mallard Landing Joint Venture reported to Department of Public Works administrators that trash was found buried on the site, Blomquist said. An investigation revealed the site, located between Golf and Seagull roads, used to be a county landfill. The landfill was closed during the early 1970s, he said.
County HealthDepartment files show it was known that part of the site had been a community dump used by area residents to burn trash.
A 1986 letterfrom a county Health Department worker to Ted Collier, one of the developers of the site, recommended the site be tested for methane.
A report to Collier from Baltimore-based Earth Engineering in November 1986 shows no methane and no hazardous materials were found at thattime.
What wasn't known to anyone, said Collier and Blomquist, was that the front part of the site contained household trash dumped there when it was operated as a county landfill.
Collier said a title search showed the county had purchased the property from Forest Greens Inc. When it closed the dump in the 1970s, the county sold the land back to Forest Greens. In December 1985, Collier purchased the land.
