Chemical Companies

Beating the chemical industry to the buyout, Baltimore has begun acquiring a handful of remaining homes in the neighborhood of Fairfield, in effect extending the public purchase of Wagner's Point to all the communities on the Fairfield peninsula.Two large chemical plants in southern Baltimore -- detergent ingredient maker Condea Vista and herbicide producer FMC Corp. -- offered to buy the same homes this month in a "neighborly" gesture intended to ward off potential lawsuits over environmental exposure.

What pesticides are Maryland families exposed to on a regular basis? Good luck finding out. There's simply no way for the average person to discover what chemicals are being applied to farm fields or even backyards. Worse, it's nearly impossible for anyone in the public health field to find out either. Should doctors discover an unusually high incidence in Maryland of leukemia or other cancer that might be associated with environmental exposure, they'd be hard-pressed to analyze the risk from pesticides.

The city of Baltimore has failed to take steps required by law to prepare for a chemical or industrial accident, says a group of local residents and environmentalists that has filed written warnings that it intends to sue seven big chemical companies here.The proposed lawsuit is aimed at forcing the companies to comply with a federal law that requires manufacturers to tell local governments about the hazardous chemicals they use so that the governments can prepare emergency plans.Otherwise, the city can't prepare for an explosion, fire or leak at a chemical plant, the community activists said.

Chemical maker W.R. Grace & Co. said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit fell 7.1 percent to $75.5 million as revenue shrank, in part due to unfavorable exchange rates. The Columbia-based firm's revenue dropped 10.1 percent to $776.6 million in the three months ending Sept. 30. Sales retrenched in all of Grace's product segments: catalysts technologies — used by oil refineries and other industrial customers — as well as materials technologies and construction products. Sales volume actually increased slightly, as did base pricing, but differences in exchange rates and a decline in what it can charge for rare earth elements outweighed those improvements, the company said.

Mayor Martin O'Malley has signed a bill that compels local chemical companies to comply with industry safety standards for preventing terrorism. In a ceremony Monday at City Hall, O'Malley said the ordinance gives the Fire Department the power to inspect chemical companies' plants and revoke their operating permits if they do not follow safety plans they submit to the city. Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. said the ordinance should not require the city's approximately 10 chemical companies to take any new steps or incur any additional expense because they have put anti-terrorism safeguards in place.

Mayor Martin O'Malley has signed a bill that compels local chemical companies to comply with industry safety standards for preventing terrorism. In a ceremony Monday at City Hall, O'Malley said the ordinance gives the Fire Department the power to inspect chemical companies' plants and revoke their operating permits if they don't follow safety plans they submit to the city. Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. said the ordinance should not require the city's approximately 10 chemical companies to take any new steps or incur any additional expense because they have already put in place safeguards to protect themselves from terrorism.

The two southern Baltimore chemical plants that have offered to buy out Fairfield peninsula residents want to resell those properties to the city at taxpayer expense.The two chemical companies -- FMC Corp., which makes herbicides, and Condea Vista, which makes detergent ingredients -- announced last week that they are offering to pay an appraised value plus up to $22,500 for each of the dozen or so remaining homes in two tiny neighborhoods near their plants. Both companies said the offer is a neighborly, generous effort to assist with relocation.

The state of Maryland yesterday accepted blame for gaps in the public's information about the dangerous compounds used by big chemical companies that ring South Baltimore's Wagner's Point.Officials of the Maryland Department of the Environment told a group that had planned to sue seven big South Baltimore chemical companies that the state had misplaced records on chemicals used by five of the seven companies. MDE also failed to notice that two companies did not notify the state about some of the hazardous chemicals they used, but those companies have now done so, MDE officials said.

South Baltimore's chemical companies attempted to shed their image as polluters yesterday by releasing a report saying they are responsible for less than 1 percent of their area's cancer risk from air pollution.Curtis Bay and Brooklyn residents have long complained that they are the exposed to high levels of cancer-causing chemicals because of their proximity to South Baltimore's industrial area, which includes 11 chemical plants.But the companies said the largest exposure to airborne carcinogens comes not from chemical plants but from car exhaust and gasoline vapors, and a smaller portion comes from dry cleaners and other small businesses.

A trade association of Maryland chemical manufacturers is launching its first billboard campaign this week with signs designed to "improve community outreach" to South Baltimore neighborhoods near industrial plants.The Chemical Industry Council of Maryland will post signs in seven locations along roads in Curtis Bay, Brooklyn and Fairfield that lead to Wagner's Point. Residents of that tiny south city section, surrounded by chemical companies and oil tank farms, have argued that chemical pollution and spills have made the neighborhood unacceptably dangerous.

Having spent my career working to address the burden of disease in disadvantaged communities in central Maryland, I appreciated Del. Jim Hubbard and Hannah Pingree's op-ed ("Hold chemical companies to account," June 4). Maryland needs to be doing more to protect our most vulnerable citizens - the young, the old, those with fewer financial or educational resources - from toxic chemicals. I've just read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," written in 1962, which makes it clear how long Americans have been exposed to dangerous pesticides and other chemicals.

Last month, we read a powerful story about just how far one industry would go to protect its bottom line. In a four-part exposé in the Chicago Tribune titled "Playing with Fire," we learned how big chemical companies - on a mission to sell more toxic chemicals - covered up the health impacts of their products, exaggerated their effectiveness, and went to extremes to scare legislators like us, poised to regulate these chemicals. The Tribune series detailed how the industry set up sham "citizen groups" to promote its agenda in the media, lied to low-income communities to garner community leaders' support, and even teamed up with Big Tobacco.

Chemical company W.R. Grace & Co. said Thursday that third-quarter earnings increased 23.6 percent as the company continued to target emerging regions. The Columbia company reported net income of $54.9 million, or 74 cents a share, for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, up from $44.4 million, or 61 cents a share, for the same period a year ago. Sales fell 9.5 percent to $682.1 million, compared with $753.6 million in the third quarter a year ago. Last year's figure included $72.4 million from a joint venture the company dissolved in December.

W.R. Grace & Co. has opened a new manufacturing facility in Vietnam as part of its strategy to expand in emerging markets. The new facility was opened by the company's construction products division in the city of Hai Duong, near Hanoi. Grace celebrated the grand opening of the plant Wednesday. The 30,000-square-foot facility will manufacture cement additives and concrete admixtures. It will also house a sales and technical service office and a quality-control lab. Columbia-based Grace has also recently opened manufacturing plants in Chongqing, China, and Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

Beginning in 1971, the President's Cancer Panel has been at the forefront of providing critical information on the status of cancer. For the first time in its nearly 40-year history, the panel has focused on environmentally induced cancers, meaning those that result from exposure to chemicals and pollution. The members concluded in this year's report that "the true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated" and recommended significant changes to better protect people from cancer-causing chemicals.

An international chemical company with operations in the Baltimore area plans to indefinitely halt production and lay off as many as 100 employees from its Hawkins Point plant because of decreased demand, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Millennium Inorganic Chemicals, a division of Cristal Global, will stop producing titanium dioxide at the plant near Key Bridge at the end of March, spokeswoman Amy Drusano said. "Some of our biggest customers are paint makers, and they rely heavily on the automotive and home sales markets," she said.

Having spent my career working to address the burden of disease in disadvantaged communities in central Maryland, I appreciated Del. Jim Hubbard and Hannah Pingree's op-ed ("Hold chemical companies to account," June 4). Maryland needs to be doing more to protect our most vulnerable citizens - the young, the old, those with fewer financial or educational resources - from toxic chemicals. I've just read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," written in 1962, which makes it clear how long Americans have been exposed to dangerous pesticides and other chemicals.

At a community meeting last night in Fairfield, the city's civil defense agency offered to train residents there and in Wagners Point in how to respond to an industrial accident, such as an explosion or chemical spill.Residents of the heavily industrialized South Baltimore communities organized the spirited meeting at the Fairfield firehouse after a chemical explosion at an FMC Corp. plant in December injured six workers. Residents complained at the time that they were not properly prepared for emergencies and did not know what kinds of hazardous materials were stored in their neighborhood.

Lyondell Chemical Co. might sell its Hawkins Point plant, which makes white pigment for everything from printer paper to the writing on M&Ms, as part of a restructuring of its inorganic chemicals business. A decision is to be made "in the coming weeks," Chief Financial Officer T. Kevin DeNicola said during a conference call with analysts yesterday to discuss fourth-quarter and year-end financial results. "We continue to consider all our options to be open," he said, and those might include a sale, a joint venture or continued ownership.