A pair of environmental groups is threatening to sue state and federal environmental agencies as well as the present and former owners of the Sparrows Point steel mill complex, accusing them of failing to clean up pollution of the industrial site and of the surrounding community, as they promised to do 12 years ago.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper contend that toxic waste from the steel-making complex is contaminating the soil and groundwater beneath the 3,100-acre peninsula and that cancer-causing metals and chemicals are seeping into Bear Creek and the Patapsco River, in violation of environmental laws and of the cleanup agreement signed in 1997. They also contend that the manufacturer is discharging harmful pollution directly into the water from its waste treatment plant and potentially endangering surrounding residents by releasing gritty particles into the air.
The groups say the pollution poses potential health risks for residents who live near the plant and who fish and crab in the waters around it. They say their concerns are heightened by a Virginia company's proposal to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on a portion of the old steel-making complex, which would require dredging contaminated sediments from the waters around it.
"We are concerned that there are clear impacts to the ecosystem," said Eliza Smith Steinmeier, director of the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper organization. "If you pull up a sample from the bottom of the river around the [Sparrows Point] peninsula, you will get a black, sludgelike substance that smells like petroleum." While she said she doesn't know what the bottom sediments contain, Steinmeier said she's sure that "it's something I would not want to crab out of."
The groups have scheduled a news conference today near the steel mill at Turner Station Park, where local residents often fish and crab, to detail their concerns. If the problems the groups list aren't resolved in 90 days, they say, they intend to ask a U.S. District Court judge to enforce the consent decree and fine the steel company for violations of pollution laws.
The environmental groups' action comes as some area residents are also organizing to file a class action lawsuit over pollution from the complex. They have long complained about pollution from the steel mill that has occupied Sparrows Point for more than a century, contending it has fouled the air, their yards and the waterways where they boat and fish. In the 1990s, the state Department of the Environment and the Environmental Protection Agency sued Bethlehem Steel Corp., then the mill's owner, and reached an agreement in 1997 to clean up contaminated soil and ground water.
