BGE's solution: Involve neighbors

SOMEONE's asleep at Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s community relations switch.

BGE is taking a lot of heat from northern Anne Arundel County neighbors because, once again, residents believe the utility is carelessly imposing a health hazard.

Apparently, few lessons were learned from the 17-year-old fly ash battle.

In September, BGE finally resolved its 17-year dispute with neighbors over fly ash. The Solley community and others fought BGE's decision to use 4 million tons of that material to build a nearby industrial park. Fly ash is a byproduct of the coal-burning process that generates electrical power for the region.

The two sides fought the battle all the way to a state appellate court before the utility surrendered and promised not to store any more fly ash on its property.

Now the utility is under fire over plans to use anhydrous ammonia to reduce the Brandon Shores plant's nitrogen oxide emissions.

The problem may have more to do with BGE's community relations than with ammonia.

Anhydrous ammonia is used safely in refrigeration systems, industrial plants and agriculture but can cause injuries or even death.

BGE would use the substance in a catalytic system to reduce emissions.

The substance was one of two alternatives the utility had when it began investigating ways to reduce NOx emissions to comply with a Maryland Department of the Environment mandate by the May 2001 deadline.

The other alternative was aqueous ammonia, a weaker form of the substance but one that would have required a higher volume and, therefore, more trucks traveling through the neighborhood. One truck of anhydrous equals six or seven trucks of aqueous.

A third possibility has emerged since BGE began exploring emission-reducing options. That's called ammonia on demand (AOD), which is considered the safest alternative but is unproven. A Connecticut plant is trying ammonia-on-demand, but BGE says it would not be comfortable with that substance until that plant's results are completed in October.

Facing the deadline, utility officials said, they could not wait for ammonia-on-demand to prove itself, and they preferred one truckload of anhydrous to several truckloads of aqueous.

They said they thought the neighbors would prefer fewer truckloads, too.

But the fly ash controversy should have taught BGE one thing: Ask residents.

BGE's decision to move forward without the advice of community residents put the utility in its customary, adversarial relationship with its neighbors.

Mistrust is rampant. Relations are so bad that residents may now believe that whatever BGE wants must be the worst thing for them.

From the start, residents deserved to have information about the benefits and the risks of each option. BGE needed to discuss safety precautions -- how hazardous materials-trained personnel would respond to emergencies.

BGE needed to make the community a partner from the outset, not halfway through the decision-making process. The residents have earned the right to be involved.

It's impossible to know now which of the two or three options North County citizens would have preferred. But I think they may have been receptive to anhydrous if they had a choice.

I think BGE made the right choice -- as long as it's only temporary. But it got caught again looking like it was trying to put one over on the community.

Employees should be very capable of transferring the material from trucks to well-made storage tanks.

This was a blown opportunity to discuss ideas in the open.

But BGE generates as much suspicion as it does electrical power.

The utility might win some support if it makes a commitment to switch to AOD if the Connecticut experience proves successful. BGE says that if all goes well, it could make the switch by July. The utility should write that date in stone if AOD works.

Meanwhile, neighbors fear the worst-case scenario: One of Brandon Shore's two 18,000-gallon tanks of anhydrous ammonia could explode or collapse, spewing a toxic cloud over the Marley Neck peninsula. The chances of this happening are extraordinarily unlikely. But then again, many people who buy Big Game tickets at 70 million-to-1 odds really think they have a chance of hitting it big.

Anything can happen.

Large spills of the liquefied gas have caused injuries and even death. But the biggest spill in this area, in Baltimore County in 1992, caused no injuries and was handled with ease. In that case, the Environmental Protection Agency fined the former Heileman Brewery for failing to notify the public.

BGE employees would be at the greatest risk if an accident were to occur at Brandon Shores.

The utility wouldn't want to use a method that would endanger its employees and expose it to a multimillion-dollar legal judgment.

The community doesn't necessarily believe that or anything the utility says.

Which is why BGE has to work harder -- and sincerely -- at making its neighbors full partners.

Norris P. West writes editorials for The Sun in Anne Arundel County.