Hazardous Materials

State prosecutors have begun a criminal investigation into possible environmental violations at a South Baltimore warehouse, after finding what is believed to be hazardous materials illegally stored at the site, authorities said yesterday. The investigation by the attorney general's environmental crimes unit began last week after residents complained that the warehouse owner had paid neighborhood children and young adults $10 to $60 a day to clean trash and chemical drums from the warehouse at 1700 Clarkson St. Inside the building, city and state investigators found liquids eating through unmarked metal barrels, oozing onto the floor and out a warehouse door, said Eric Augustus Banks, a compliance officer with the city Department of Public Works.

MIAMI -- Federal charges are expected within days against American Airlines, accusing Miami's No. 1 air carrier of endangering passengers by mishandling hazardous cargo and carrying it illegally on its jets.It could be the first time in aviation history that a major airline is charged criminally for transporting hazardous materials.Combustibles, pesticides, corrosives and other substances -- such as cases of flammable perfumes and dangerous hair spray canisters -- are some of the materials that have been loaded improperly, according to federal sources close to the case.

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. has fined a Baltimore concrete business $20,000 for illegally disposing of a 55-gallon drum of hazardous material while doing work for the city last year.Giovanni Lumaro, president of G. L. Concrete Construction Inc., pleaded guilty in Circuit Court last week to the dumping charges. Circuit Judge Roger W. Brown suspended $10,000 of the fine, placing the company on two years' probation. The remainder of the fine will be paid to a state hazardous substance control fund, Curran said.

A hazardous material spilled onto Route 27 in Mount Airy yesterday, closing the highway and ramps to Interstate 70, while crews from four counties battled intense heat and noxious fumes for nearly six hours.A gas station became the staging area about 8: 30 a.m. for more than 60 firefighters and 15 state police officers working to clean up phenol resin, a toxic byproduct of formaldehyde, a carcinogen.The chemical had leaked from a freight truck en route to Jessup from West Virginia. No one was injured, but several cases of heat exhaustion were reported.

Buzz Melton squinted across a South Baltimore field and liked what he saw: twisted metal, oozing chemicals, 20 moaning accident victims."The only thing we're missing are famine and locusts," Melton said with gusto.Yesterday morning, more than 200 of the region's fire, police and emergency medical workers tested their skills against Melton, the master of disaster, in their 13th annual hazardous materials drill.When it was over, Melton again liked what he saw."There are some places for improvement, but overall we're tickled with the results," said the senior environmental engineer for agricultural products manufacturer FMC Corp.

Workers from a hazardous-materials team spent four hours Sunday searching for a leaking drum filled with chemicals that posed an inhalation hazard at a Jessup truck stop.No injuries were reported in the incident, which drew 30 workers from the Howard County Fire and Rescue Services hazardous material team to the Truckers Inn Truckstop in the 7400 block of Assateague Drive.The team received a call about a chemical spill at around 1:30 p.m., said Lt. Ken Byerly, a fire spokesman. When the team arrived, members saw liquid leaking from a trailer in the parking lot.Inside the trailer, they found 108 drums filled with fluorboric acid and stannous fluorborate acid -- corrosives that pose inhalation hazards, Lieutenant Byerly said.

Carroll County parks workers hastily removed the "hazardous materials" warnings from trash barrels at Freedom Park Monday in the wake of a complaint from a Sykesville man.County and state EPA officials contended that the small amount of dried paint in the barrels is not a health hazard and that leaving the stickers on the barrels was an oversight, which they have corrected.Work crews spray-painted the stickers that they could not remove and made them unreadable.No law requires the county government to remove the hazard labels, but it would be a good practice, Quentin W. Banks, Maryland Department of the Environment spokesman, said.

ATTENTION, homeowners. Time for a pop quiz:* Before you hoisted that huge 15- or 30-year mortgage onto your shoulders, did you research the house site and the surrounding community?* Before you signed on the dotted line (a couple dozen times or so for the typical house settlement), did you consult the available government records pertaining to the property?* Did you look at the plans that would tell you whether the forest behind your dream home was scheduled to be flattened within the next five years to make way for more houses?

Carroll County's Local Emergency Planning Committee is cataloging the locations of all hazardous materials stored in the county, including pesticides and other farm chemicals, on a new computer at the Emergency Operations Center, officials said yesterday.The information would be dispatched to emergency crews that respond to fires or hazardous materials incidents to alert them of danger before they arrive at a scene, committee members told Commissioner Richard T. Yates yesterday.Many of the hazardous materials locations have been listed with various county fire companies.

Investigators from the Environmental Protection Agency, Maryland Department of the Environment and the attorney general's office yesterday combed an Anne Arundel highway construction site looking for hazardous materials that may be buried there.As of late yesterday, the search at the intersection of U.S. 50 and Interstate 97 just north of Annapolis had uncovered two 55-gallon barrels -- one containing a "grease-like" substance, said Liz Kalinowski, a spokeswoman for the State Highway Administration.