Landfill Site

Baltimore officials advanced a developer's plan yesterday to build more than 1,000 homes on the city's southern border - along with a more contentious proposal to provide access to those homes through a former landfill. On an 9-3 vote with one abstention, the City Council permitted the sale of 159 acres of city-owned property for the project, a procedural move that has stoked the debate over the best use of once-industrial property near the waterfront. Charles County developer Stephen P. McAllister has proposed building 1,300 homes on a site in Anne Arundel County and hopes to build an access road across the former Pennington Avenue landfill near Curtis Bay. "The population has been declining for years and years up there," said McAllister, a co-owner of Waldorf-based Cherrywood Development.

Howard County equestrians and county officials will meet tonight to discuss where to build an indoor riding facility that some local horse enthusiasts say is long overdue."

Baltimore's Board of Estimates approved a 20-year deal yesterday that allows a private waste-hauling company to open and operate a trash transfer station at the closed Bowleys Lane Landfill near Herring Run Park in East Baltimore. One formality must be resolved before Eastern Shore Environmental Inc. can build the facility: The property has to be rezoned. The site at 6101 Bowleys Lane is zoned for residential use, despite the fact that a landfill operated there until 1980. "The zoning has to be changed so the facility can be built there," said Public Works Director George L. Winfield, who sits on the five-member Board of Estimates.

Maybe things were destined to go foul here, in this grassy Marriottsville park adjacent to a former landfill."It seems this area is selected by each administration for dumping on," says Western Howard County resident Donald Gill, who almost two decades ago was forced to become next-door neighbor to a giant trash can.The latest controversy surrounding the former Alpha Ridge landfill -- a proposed in-line skating pavilion up for a public hearing tonight --...

Angry neighbors of the contaminated Alpha Ridge Landfill in Marriottsville say County Executive Charles I. Ecker's proposal to help pay for safe public drinking water has only partially slaked their thirst for county financial aid."The whole county caused our problem, and I think the whole county needs to go the last little bit," said Al Starr, whose house is just off the landfill's northwestern corner -- its most contaminated area.Mr. Starr was among about 100 residents who attempted during a raucous Monday night community meeting to goad Mr. Ecker and their county councilman, Republican Charles C. Feaga, into picking up the entire $4,100 in water hook-up charges for each home.

Abingdon area residents will get a second chance to express their thoughts on the county's plan to reopen a landfill in their fast-growing neighborhood. County Council President Robert S. Wagner has scheduled a second public hearing on the administration's proposed solid-waste management plan and its suggestion to use the Spencer sand and gravel pit off Abingdon Road as a landfill for construction and demolition debris. Wagner said he scheduled the second hearing after determining that most of the people living near the pit had no knowledge of the county plan.

A state order requiring BBSS Inc. to clean up contaminated water found near its coal ash dump site in Gambrills has stalled a proposed shopping center expansion that would bring in a Target store. The Village at Waugh Chapel South would be built off Route 3 on part of the 80-acre site where Baltimore Gas & Electric has been hauling its fly ash, a byproduct from its coal-fired power plants.

A hole in the ground in Odenton has become the unlikely catalyst in a statewide inquiry into whether landfills are unfairly steered into minority neighborhoods.A decade-long battle over whether Chesapeake Terrace, site of a former mining operation, should open as a collection site for construction and demolition debris in west Anne Arundel County has taken a new turn. State and federal environmental officials are trying to determine whether residents of Wilson Town, a predominantly black community near the 481-acre property, are the victims of environmental racism.

RISING SUN -- State biologists say one of Maryland's finest trout streams has been badly damaged by a construction accident at a nearby hazardous waste site that was being cleaned up under the supervision of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. State and federal officials said a construction error caused a collapse in a 20-foot-tall berm surrounding a sediment pond at the Woodlawn Landfill, a federal Superfund site in rural Cecil County. The accident on Dec. 19 sent a torrent of sediment into an unnamed stream that is a breeding ground for brown trout, smallmouth bass, bluegill and other fish.

Harford County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann wants employees of the county Sheriff's Office, who are state employees, to be on the county merit pay system.She says that will eliminate concerns over job security every four years when the sheriff is up for re-election.Rehrmann has asked the county's seven state legislators to draft a law in the upcoming General Assembly session to make the change.The executive provided the legislators with a working draft.LANDFILL COMPLAINTSThree members of the Harford County Council, acting as a subcommittee of the Harford Board of Health, will look into citizens' complaints about the county-owned Scarboro Landfill.