Curtis Creek

The first phase of a $14.5 million project by the Maryland Transportation Authority to replace the decks of the Baltimore Beltway drawbridge over Curtis Creek will begin next week, reducing travel lanes and creating new traffic patterns. On Tuesday, crews will shut down the eastbound outer loop of Interstate 695 between Quarantine Road (Exit 1) and Route 10 at 8 p.m. so they can place a barrier wall between the two lanes to allow two-way traffic. On Jan. 7, the inner loop will be closed down.

The first phase of a $14.5 million project by the Maryland Transportation Authority to replace the decks of the Baltimore Beltway drawbridge over Curtis Creek will begin next week, reducing travel lanes and creating new traffic patterns. On Tuesday, crews will shut down the eastbound outer loop of Interstate 695 between Quarantine Road (Exit 1) and Route 10 at 8 p.m. so they can place a barrier wall between the two lanes to allow two-way traffic. On Jan. 7, the inner loop will be closed down.

A tanker truck crashed in an industrial area at Baltimore's southern tip yesterday, spilling 2,700 gallons of heating oil and sparking a roaring fire that forced police to shut down a Beltway overpass. The Hoffberger Co. delivery truck was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived at Hawkins Point Road about 11:30 a.m. Fuel on the road also burned, causing a 100-yard-long "river of fire," Fire Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres said. The truck's driver, Oswald Gross, 38, of Annapolis, was taken to Harbor Hospital Center as a precaution, police said.

Parts of the Beltway will be closed during the next three months as the Maryland Transportation Authority repairs a faulty drawbridge over Curtis Creek in Southeast Baltimore, forcing some motorists to make lengthy detours to reach the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Lane closings in connection with the project will start Monday, but a more extensive shutdown will come Jan. 9 when the entire Outer Loop will be closed in the vicinity of the bridge for about five weeks. Traffic will run in two directions on the Inner Loop.

Anne Arundel County officials are trying to sort out another complex land deal that former County Executive John G. Gary engineered during his final weeks in office, this one again involving the purchase of land with little apparent potential for public use.The deal, for 40 acres of wooded waterfront along Curtis Creek, took place in December, at the same time the county spent $1 million for Maryland City property that has gone unused.The Curtis Creek land came to the county in a trade Gary brokered that handed a Millersville businessman the chance to quietly open a garbage transfer station that had been opposed by residents.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed yesterday adding the century-old Curtis Bay Coast Guard Yard in Anne Arundel County to its Superfund National Priorities list of hazardous waste sites. The Curtis Bay yard is a 113-acre facility on the east side of Curtis Creek in northern Anne Arundel, six miles southeast of downtown Baltimore. Once a shipbuilding facility, the yard is now limited to construction and repair of Coast Guard vessels. Coast Guard investigations of environmental conditions at the yard over the past 10 years have found low levels of contaminants that extend to the sediments of Curtis Creek below the yard's dry docks.

The state was still reeling from the ravages of Hurricane Hugo II when Joe Guard noticed a heavy black sheen spreading across the Cabin Branch.A watchman at a Curtis Creek oil terminal, Guard notified company officials, who quickly determined that the storm had damaged the storage facility, spilling 100,000 gallons of petroleum into the storm drains and ultimately the creek.That was the scenario that began yesterday morning's mock oil spill -- a "scrimmage" for the state's Oil Spill Emergency Rescue team -- at the mouth of Curtis Creek and Cabin Branch.

The Coast Guard cutter Sledge sliced through the brown-gray waters of Curtis Creek just after dawn yesterday in a sneak attack on a dormant but devastating enemy. Two hours later, the Sledge's tow barge brimmed with the spoils of war -- dozens of mud-soaked tires, bottles and hunks of scrap metal -- discarded debris that is a blight on the shores of the waterway. Crews from the Sledge and the cutter James Rankin uncovered a rusted grocery cart with its plastic flap seat still intact, a child's football and an orange road construction cone.

Parts of the Beltway will be closed during the next three months as the Maryland Transportation Authority repairs a faulty drawbridge over Curtis Creek in Southeast Baltimore, forcing some motorists to make lengthy detours to reach the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Lane closings in connection with the project will start Monday, but a more extensive shutdown will come Jan. 9 when the entire Outer Loop will be closed in the vicinity of the bridge for about five weeks. Traffic will run in two directions on the Inner Loop.

RESIDENTS DESERVE fair warning before government places an operation as potentially intrusive as a trash transfer station near them.Large trucks haul garbage to these transfer facilities, where workers separate recyclables and reload waste for shipment to landfills. Northern Anne Arundel residents for months have been living a mile from a transfer station without knowing it.In this case, ignorance wasn't bliss. Residents deserved a chance to evaluate and discuss the facility, owned by Millersville businessman William K. Blanchet, even if it apparently was just far enough away not to disturb them.

Concerned about a history of neglect and a rapidly changing landscape, several residents living along some of the Glen Burnie area's most vulnerable waterways have formed a city-county group to keep an eye on government and developers. The Curtis-Marley-Furnace Watershed Association, named for Furnace and Marley Creeks in Anne Arundel County and Curtis Creek in the city, was formed with the goal of reopening the creeks to swimming and refocusing county attention on the area's future. "This whole area hasn't had large development in years," said association founder Jennifer McBride, an electrical engineer who has lived in Glen Burnie for nearly a decade.

Residents of a Pasadena neighborhood are speaking out against what was supposed to have been a routine permit renewal for a local company to continue disposing of manganese on its site along Curtis Creek. Erachem Comilog Inc., which refines raw manganese into products used in fertilizers, electronics, water filtration and pet food, has been disposing its treated wastewater into local waterways for more than 30 years. Every five years, the company renews its permit application with the Maryland Department of the Environment, usually attracting little attention from neighbors or activists.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed yesterday adding the century-old Curtis Bay Coast Guard Yard in Anne Arundel County to its Superfund National Priorities list of hazardous waste sites. The Curtis Bay yard is a 113-acre facility on the east side of Curtis Creek in northern Anne Arundel, six miles southeast of downtown Baltimore. Once a shipbuilding facility, the yard is now limited to construction and repair of Coast Guard vessels. Coast Guard investigations of environmental conditions at the yard over the past 10 years have found low levels of contaminants that extend to the sediments of Curtis Creek below the yard's dry docks.

The Coast Guard cutter Sledge sliced through the brown-gray waters of Curtis Creek just after dawn yesterday in a sneak attack on a dormant but devastating enemy. Two hours later, the Sledge's tow barge brimmed with the spoils of war -- dozens of mud-soaked tires, bottles and hunks of scrap metal -- discarded debris that is a blight on the shores of the waterway. Crews from the Sledge and the cutter James Rankin uncovered a rusted grocery cart with its plastic flap seat still intact, a child's football and an orange road construction cone.

A tanker truck crashed in an industrial area at Baltimore's southern tip yesterday, spilling 2,700 gallons of heating oil and sparking a roaring fire that forced police to shut down a Beltway overpass. The Hoffberger Co. delivery truck was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived at Hawkins Point Road about 11:30 a.m. Fuel on the road also burned, causing a 100-yard-long "river of fire," Fire Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres said. The truck's driver, Oswald Gross, 38, of Annapolis, was taken to Harbor Hospital Center as a precaution, police said.

RESIDENTS DESERVE fair warning before government places an operation as potentially intrusive as a trash transfer station near them.Large trucks haul garbage to these transfer facilities, where workers separate recyclables and reload waste for shipment to landfills. Northern Anne Arundel residents for months have been living a mile from a transfer station without knowing it.In this case, ignorance wasn't bliss. Residents deserved a chance to evaluate and discuss the facility, owned by Millersville businessman William K. Blanchet, even if it apparently was just far enough away not to disturb them.

As he pilots the Ireland, a family-owned tugboat, around the untroubled waters of Curtis Creek, Joe McGeady is relieved to be free of the spotlight.Ten years ago tomorrow, he and seven other crew members were stranded in the Atlantic on a flimsy life raft, the subject of intense media attention after the sinking of the Pride of Baltimore.For days in May 1986, Baltimoreans agonized over a report that the city's schooner, a sleek, trim clipper built on the shore of the Inner Harbor during the city's '70s renaissance, had gone down on a homeward voyage from Europe.

Anne Arundel County officials are trying to sort out another complex land deal that former County Executive John G. Gary engineered during his final weeks in office, this one again involving the purchase of land with little apparent potential for public use.The deal, for 40 acres of wooded waterfront along Curtis Creek, took place in December, at the same time the county spent $1 million for Maryland City property that has gone unused.The Curtis Creek land came to the county in a trade Gary brokered that handed a Millersville businessman the chance to quietly open a garbage transfer station that had been opposed by residents.