Leak

Both spans of the Bay Bridge were closed for nearly two hours Tuesday during afternoon rush hour after a propane truck began leaking its contents on the westbound approach on Kent Island. Eastbound traffic backed up to St. Margarent's Road and westbound traffic was stalled as far east as Kent Narrows while emergency crews dealt with the situation. At one point, Maryland Transportation Authority officials urged motorists to seek alternate routes, including Delaware roads. The MdTA closed the bridges about 3:20 p.m., when a white tanker truck began venting a plume of white smoke near the intersection of westbound U.S. 50 and Route 8 in Stevensville.

I need to take a moment to tell you about Brad Marvel, a trained, certified, proud and professional automobile mechanic. I think I should add the he's sincere and earnest, and emphasize that he's a human being - a person, not a corporation. I had a meal with him at Bill Bateman's in Parkville. Marvel was so eager to tell his story that he barely touched his Monday night all-you-can-eat chicken wings special. At its core, Brad's story goes something like this: "I loved my customers at the Jacksonville Exxon station, and I want all of them to know - especially the ones who were harmed by the leak - that I had nothing to do with that.

A hazardous materials crew was called to clean up a spill of automotive fluids into a small stream following a single vehicle accident north of Rocks State Park in northern Harford County Wednesday afternoon. A Honda Accord traveling north ran off Route 24 a few hundred feet north of Coen Road, flipping over and landing in the stream around 3:38 p.m., according to Rich Gardiner, a spokesman for the Harford Volunteer Fire & EMS Association. The driver, whose name and age were unavailable, was taken by ambulance to a regional trauma center, Gardiner said.

In recent years, album release dates haven't mattered as much as "leak" days have. That trend continued when the compilation album from Kanye West and his G.O.O.D. Music clique - "Cruel Summer," an odd name for a record that will hit stores on Tuesday, five days before fall begins - hit the Internet while most of us were sleeping last night. You won't find a link here, but if you're good with the Google, you should have no problem finding it. There's always iTunes, too. We've heard the singles - the ubiquitous "Mercy" has been banging out of cars for months and "New God Flow" (now with a wonderful Ghostface Killah verse tacked on at the end)

Notes from Maryland's 36-27 victory over Temple: * A player who emerged Saturday was sophomore wide receiver Marcus Leak. He caught a 32-yard touchdown reception in the first half. In the second half, he made a leaping, 39-yard catch on a third-and-17. He outjumped a pair of Temple defenders. It was the sort of grab you haven't seen much from Maryland since the days of Torrey Smith and Darrius Heyward-Bey. Leak appears to be a gifted and physical enough receiver to snatch passes away from defenders in heavy traffic.

A Baltimore County utility crew repairing a sewer drain in Rossville struck a natural gas line Monday morning, which led emergency responders to seal off the area and close the westbound lane of Route 40, according to a Baltimore County police and fire spokeswoman. About 10 a.m., a crew with the Baltimore County Bureau of Utilities was repairing an 8-inch-wide sewer drain under Route 40, also known as Pulaski Highway, near the intersection of Rossville Boulevard when they struck the 2-inch-wide gas line, said Elise Armacost, the spokeswoman.

An industry group is accusing the Chesapeake Bay Foundation of misrepresenting the facts in a video investigation the environmental group released last fall purporting to show natural gas wells and processing facilities spewing invisible plumes of pollution into the air. Energy in Depth , an arm of the Independent Petroleum Association of America , says the plumes captured on CBF's video using an infrared camera are not surreptitious releases...

A chlorine leak at Montebello Filtration Plant No. 2 on Hillen Road in Baltimore Monday morning sent two workers to the hospital, according to a city public works spokesman. The leak occurred around 9:30 a.m. Monday and two workers who were exposed to the chemical were taken to local hospitals, public works spokesman Kurt Kocher said. He could not comment on their condition. Approximately 15-to-20 people working in the plant at the time were evacuated, he said. Baltimore City firefighters and HAZMAT workers capped the leak, which Kocher said appeared to be caused by a faulty cap on one of the plant's out-of-service filtration cylinders.

A carbon monoxide incident closed an annex at Baltimore City's Main Post Office Monday and sent two people to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Fire crews responded at about 8:30 a.m. to the one-story annex at Colvin and Lexington streets, near the main building in the 900 block of East Fayette Street. They found one person who had suffered a head injury from a fall and several other employees complaining of dizziness. A hazmat unit conducted air monitoring and determined that there were 38 parts per million of carbon monoxide inside the 35,000-square-foot building.

A gas leak in Locust Point forced the evacuation Monday of occupants of several blocks of rowhouses as well as workers at the Under Armour headquarters. The broken pipe was repaired within a few hours. The leak was reported in the 1100 block of Hull St. about 10:30 a.m. A crew of contractors told fire officials they inadvertently struck a gas line while working on road repairs, fire spokesman Chief Kevin Cartwright said. Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. crews repaired the gas line by about 1:30 p.m. There were no reports of injuries.