July 10, 2010|By Meredith Cohn and Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun
From their docks, the view is mostly pristine, except for the brown mound of industrial waste peeking over the treetops. Grey's Landfill, an aging, unlined repository for Sparrows Point's industrial waste, is expected to grow several stories taller in the next several years.
Sometimes dust from it coats Cox's boats. There are smells. From his boat, he can ride by the mill and see slag, or granular black waste, piled on the edge of the Patapsco River at the mouth of Bear Creek. Some falls in the water or washes in during rain because there is no bulkhead or other barrier to stop it.
His decision to join the lawsuit was especially difficult because he counts executives at Severstal as customers. They gave him a six-hour tour of the mill, which he said was enough time to know that "they were way out of compliance."
And, he said, "It's not going to get better."
Wilton Strong, a 79-year-old retired machinist and recreational fisherman who lives on Bear Creek, didn't have any reservations about joining the lawsuit. The number and variety of fish have declined, he said. And some days, he can see the "filth" floating in the river from his boat.
The view is still pretty, he says. But it's not what it was, and he wants other generations to enjoy what he once enjoyed.
"There used to be bathing beaches all over the place here where you could swim and not worry, and you could fish," he said.
"Now you can't catch what you used to," he said. "And no one swims. That's OK for me, but what about my grandkids and great-grandkid? Why shouldn't they be able to swim?"
meredith.cohn@baltsun.com
tim.wheeler@baltsun.com
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