Baltimore Gas

Record-breaking heat fueled severe storms that swept across parts of Maryland on Wednesday. Though not an official record-keeping location, Maryland Science Center reached 107 degrees, tying the hottest mark ever recorded in Baltimore, on July 10, 1936. At that time, weather records were kept at the U.S. Custom House downtown, but the point of record for Baltimore moved in 1950 to what is now Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. BWI, meanwhile, reached a high of 104, breaking the previous official record for July 18, set in 1887 at 102. That had been Baltimore's longest-standing high-temperature record for July.

The debate continues over whether Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. should start burying its power lines to avoid a repeat of the lengthy outages that swept the area after the derecho storm last month. Another city whose electrical infrastructure was wrecked by a natural disaster 124 years ago took that step. After the Great Blizzard of 1888 dumped 20.9 inches of snow on New York City, pulling down wires, plunging the city into darkness and snarling communications for days, city officials ordered that all overhead wires be buried.

An 18-year-old man dressed in women's clothes was fatally shot in the head at a gas station in East Baltimore early Saturday morning, according to police. Desean Bowman, of the 200 block of Ballou Court, was pumping gas shortly after 2 a.m. at the Exxon gas station at the corner of E. Fayette and N. Caroline streets, near the Douglass Homes neighborhood, when a female friend of his got out of the car he was fueling and went to the station's cashier window, police said. At the window, the girl was approached by an unknown man who identified himself as "Tay" and attempted to talk to her, police said.

A theft this month of 311 gallons of gasoline from a station in Baltimore is one in a series of similar incidents, according to the station's owner, who says people have been disabling pumps and allowing friends and relatives to fill their tanks for free Mehdi Rezakhan, who owns BP stations in Remington and East Baltimore, said each businesses has been hit once, and stations owned by friends have been taken several times, one for 1,800 gallons of...

Gov. Martin O'Malley is pushing state energy regulators to consider renewable energy resources and to allow utilities to own plants again in their efforts to seek potential new power generation at cost-controlled prices. To prevent potential blackouts and reduce Maryland's reliance on out-of-state electricity, the Public Service Commission last month ordered the state's utilities, including Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., to seek proposals for companies that would build natural gas plants in return for guaranteed power purchases by the utilities.

Editor: The Havre de Grace Historic Preservation Commission would like to thank Ms. Bryna Zumer for her articles in The Aegis newspaper and The Record newspaper of Aug. 5, relating the commission's concern with the Baltimore Gas and Electric company and the installation of exposed gas lines and outdoor gas meters in the Havre de Grace historic district. Apparently, there is some misinformation circulating. The commission was initially approached by Bernie Hilditch, BGE gas design, in a letter dated Dec. 28, 2009 that BGE wold be replacing the gas services to properties located along South Union Avenue from Girard Street to Bourbon Street, and Bourbon Street to Market Street.

Samuel A. Rittenhouse, an electrical engineer who had been general manager of engineering for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., died Aug. 8 of renal failure at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The longtime Blakehurst retirement community resident was 93. Mr. Rittenhouse was born in Baltimore and raised on Calvert Street. After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1934, he earned an electrical engineering degree in 1937 from the Johns Hopkins University. During World War II, he served with the Army in the Pacific.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler is investigating a Rockville gasoline distributor after prices at the pump jumped 25 cents overnight last week, he said Monday. The inquiry takes place as Senate Democrats prepare a vote on legislation that would curb federal tax subsidies to the largest oil companies. Gansler said Empire Petroleum Holdings, which serves gas stations in Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties, has cooperated with his investigation, which he said he launched in response to a consumer complaint.

ExxonMobil Corp. lawyers presented their first witnesses Monday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, opening their defense in a lengthy jury trial after an underground gasoline leak in 2006 - one of the most serious in Maryland's history. Two witnesses - an ExxonMobil territory manager and the then-president of the Greater Jacksonville Association - gave their accounts of the day they learned of the leak of about 25,000 gallons of regular unleaded gasoline and the weeks after, as fear spread through the Jacksonville community of about 4,000 households in northern Baltimore County.About 150 plaintiffs represented by the Peter G. Angelos law firm are suing ExxonMobil for compensatory and punitive damages in a trial that began in January.