Illegal Dumping

Henry Purnell Guercio Jr., 42, of Coconut Court in Bel Air has been charged with illegally disposing of scrap tires for monetary gain and with commercial dumping, the attorney general's office has announced. Investigators say the dumping occurred between Aug. 15 and Dec. 1, last year on a farm at 309-311 W. Wheel Road. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of $25,000. The trial has been set for Sept. 25. The filing of charges in District Court follows a joint investigation conducted by the Environmental Crimes Unit of the attorney general's office and the state police, with the assistance of the Maryland Department of Environment's Scrap Tire Program.

A federal judge in Baltimore has awarded $462,500 to a low-level merchant marine officer who alerted Coast Guard inspectors that his cargo ship was intentionally polluting the high seas. In his ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis also left open the possibility of giving Salvador Lopez, a former ship's engineer from the Philippines, an additional $462,500 in reward money, depending on the outcome of another portion of the case. Lopez gave Coast Guard inspectors in Baltimore a handwritten note tipping them off to the illegal dumping of oily waste and garbage during the M/V Aquarosa's first visit to the port of Baltimore in February 2011.

The state Department of the Environment issued an order to stop work and levied an $18,000 civil fine against Patapsco Excavating Inc. for accepting and illegally dumping solid waste.The fine -- $1,000 for each of the 18 times inspectors have observed company workers dumping solid waste at its clean-fill site in the 600 block of W. Patapsco Ave.-- was levied by the department's waste management division.State officials caught the company dumping solid waste, including tire chips and debris from the demolition of homes during a surprise inspection last week.

The man insisted he didn't illegally dump the toilet by the side of the road. No, he just left it there as a favor for "Moe," a homeless guy who planned to put it to use in a vacant house somewhere. "That was his story," said city housing official Thomas Waugh. At least, that was the man's story after one of the city housing department's surveillance cameras caught him ditching the commode along a Southwest Baltimore street. Waugh didn't believe the excuse for a second, and even if he had, dropping off a toilet would still qualify as littering.

Illegal dumping is overloading Sykesville's sanitation workers.Unidentified dumpers are leaving bulky surprises in the trash trucks and on the grounds of the maintenance shop near Town Hall."

BALTIMORE ISN'T as clean as it should be. Especially beyond the tourist-attractive realm of the Inner Harbor and downtown that gets extra attention from privately paid sanitation crews. City workers have improved a number of areas with "Clean Sweep" days that target some of the filthier neighborhoods. But no matter how much sanitation workers do, it's clear that until people's attitudes change it won't be enough.Attitudes deserve a lot of the blame for the extremely high amount of illegal dumping that occurs in Baltimore.

The owner of a Frederick County refinishing business has been charged with violating federal hazardous waste laws by dumping paint strippers and lacquer thinners without a permit.The indictment, returned yesterday by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, charges Anthony St. Angelo Sr. with four counts of illegal dumping at St. Angelo's East Coast Furniture Renewal Services in Ijamsville.The indictment accuses St. Angelo, who lives in Hagerstown, of ignoring "repeated warnings" that he needed a hazardous waste permit after several employees of Eastern Waste Industries, a trash-hauling company, became ill from the chemicals in 1987.

Mayor Martin O'Malley's administration defended the operations of the Quarantine Road Landfill yesterday after a city audit released this week criticized the dump for lax fiscal oversight that left cash collections open to theft. The Department of Audits' report said landfill operators ignored its warnings about how cash is handled and that the dump has lost revenues because it has not been charging appropriate fees to small haulers. In addition, the audit criticized the Department of Public Works for waiving such "tipping fees" for certain government agencies that used the South Baltimore landfill.

Using the night as cover, illegal dumpers have been getting away for years with marring some of Baltimore's most secluded -- though public -- areas with rusted refrigerators, used tires and old sofas.But now, the dumpers are getting dumped on -- courtesy of a zealous mayoral task force whose mission is to clean up Baltimore.Along with police, members of the Mayor's Illegal Dumping Task Force will rummage through the garbage looking for clues to trace the owners. The news delights city residents who are outraged by the amount of dumping in their neighborhoods.

Before prosperity came to the land around Nell Urban's cheery yellow house, she remembers a pony across the street and woods where her daughter played. Today, she looks out on a fast-food restaurant and low-slung shops that have popped up on the corners along Route 543 and U.S. 1 in Hickory. She doesn't mind the company, she said, except for the empty grocery store behind her house, which has become an illegal dumping ground for people who bring trash by the truckload, as well as furniture, yard waste, old computers and batteries.

Baltimore officials reported a sewage overflow late Monday afternoon in Herring Run, due partly to a blockage that appears to have been caused by illegal disposal of carpeting through a manhole. The spill, near Harford Road and Argonne Drive, is more than 10,000 gallons, which triggers public notification, the Department of Public Works said. The total will be calculated after the department's workers stop the spill. The Maryland Department of the Environment and the Baltimore City Health Department have been notified, DPW officials said.

A Panama-based shipping company will pay $4 million for illegally dumping 6,000 gallons of oil-contaminated sludge and bilge waste in December 2009 during the voyage from Gibraltar to Baltimore, officials said. Irika Shipping S.A., a ship management corporation, pleaded guilty Thursday to concealing the dumping from the M/V Iorana, a Greek-flagged cargo ship that made stops in Baltimore, Tacoma, Wash., and New Orleans, according to the U.S. District Court in Baltimore. Crews used a bypass hose to avoid pollution prevention equipment required by law, court documents state.

A 44-year-old Owings Mills man was arrested and charged last week in connection with the illegal dumping of more than 100 pounds of construction debris in Upton, officials said yesterday. Tommy Ray Whitehead was arrested Wednesday while at District Court on Patapsco Avenue for another illegal dumping case, city officials said. In the most recent case, police have accused Whitehead of dumping debris in a community garden in the 1200 block of Shields Place. The Sun reported last month that a huge pile of debris - including a brown house door, insulation resembling pink cotton candy and planks of wood and bricks - was left in a grassy alleyway on Shields Place that had been converted into a community garden.

Hours after the appearance of a front-page article in The Sun on Saturday about illegal dumping on a West Baltimore community garden, two trucks and a gaggle of employees from the city's Bureau of Solid Waste descended on the site and cleared the debris . The debris removal was ordered by Mayor Sheila Dixon, who has made cleaning the city a top priority of her adminstration. Teresa M. Stephens, the manager of the garden, has received several calls and e-mails from community members and city officials since the article ran. She is now arranging for volunteers to work at the garden April 14. The group will build compost bins and possibly do some planting, she said.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources will not pursue hunting-related charges in the deaths and dumping of about two dozen snow geese found near a Columbia playground this month, Sgt. Ken Turner said yesterday. Turner said that snow goose hunting season ended Feb. 25 and that his agency had no evidence that the birds, were "killed illegally" or after that date. The birds were found March 2, and their deaths first reported in the Columbia Flier. Turner said that any law enforcement agency, including his own, could pursue illegal dumping - or littering - charges in the case, but that his agency would not do so. Turner said that the birds had been shot and some of their breasts removed, apparently for food.

Vandals and litterbugs targeting Baltimore's neighborhoods will soon get a talking-to from an unlikely source - the city's newest breed of surveillance camera. Five talking cameras - armed with motion detectors, a bright flash and a recorded warning - were approved by the city's Board of Estimates yesterday as part of an effort to curb quality-of-life crimes, especially illegal dumping. The cameras, which cost about $5,000 apiece, are the latest in surveillance technology that cities across the country are using to deter everything from red-light runners to drug dealers.

Two brothers were charged yesterday with dumping more than 100 pounds of garbage on a vacant city-owned lot that had become an illegal dumping ground over the past eight to 10 months, city officials said. John Burns Williams, 47, of the 3200 block of Doycron Court in Baltimore County and Curtis Lee Williams, 49, of the 1000 block of 43rd St. in Baltimore were charged yesterday after an investigation by the city's environmental crimes unit. The unit responded about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday to a call about the site in the 100 block of N. Calverton Road.

While a year-old crackdown on illegal tire dumping has resulted in 18 arrests and four convictions in recent months, it is costing the city $500,000 a year to clean up and dispose of the 1,200 or so tons of tires that are illegally dumped in vacant lots across Baltimore, Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. said yesterday.Standing before a mound of tires illegally dumped next to an abandoned warehouse on Druid Park Drive in West Baltimore, Curran said the state's Environmental Crimes Unit and the city's Department of Public Works have recently used surveillance cameras to catch illegal dumpers in the act.In addition to being marred by used tires, other wooded or isolated parts of the city have been turned into minilandfills of trash bags, discarded furniture and other dregs, Curran said.

Two brothers were charged yesterday with dumping more than 100 pounds of garbage on a vacant city-owned lot that had become an illegal dumping ground over the past eight to 10 months, city officials said. John Burns Williams, 47, of the 3200 block of Doycron Court in Baltimore County and Curtis Lee Williams, 49, of the 1000 block of 43rd St. in Baltimore were charged yesterday after an investigation by the city's environmental crimes unit. The unit responded about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday to a call about the site in the 100 block of N. Calverton Road.

Mayor Martin O'Malley's administration defended the operations of the Quarantine Road Landfill yesterday after a city audit released this week criticized the dump for lax fiscal oversight that left cash collections open to theft. The Department of Audits' report said landfill operators ignored its warnings about how cash is handled and that the dump has lost revenues because it has not been charging appropriate fees to small haulers. In addition, the audit criticized the Department of Public Works for waiving such "tipping fees" for certain government agencies that used the South Baltimore landfill.