Plant

Several hundred former Sparrows Point workers gathering late Monday afternoon for details of their steel mill's demise heard from union leaders that at least two groups had wanted to restart the plant but weren't given the chance. Joe Rosel, president of United Steelworkers Local 9477 in Sparrows Point, told the crowd that Sherman International, an iron and steel equipment supplier in Pittsburgh, wanted to operate the plant and tried to bid $150 million for it last week. "They were told they couldn't bid because the plant wasn't for sale anymore," Rosel said.

The effort to connect former Sparrows Point workers with training for new careers gained more urgency last week as the final hopes of the steel mill reopening were dashed - and as the deadline to apply for the help or forever lose it fast approaches for hundreds. More than 1,600 of the people laid off from the Baltimore County plant are eligible for federal "trade adjustment" benefits, which cover retraining costs and come with a stipend equal to unemployment benefits once those run out. Only half have enrolled.

An out-of-state steelmaker has bought the most valuable piece of the Sparrows Point plant to use as spare parts, a move that could kill the last hopes that the steel mill might be purchased by an operator and reopened. American Metal Market reported late Wednesday that Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor Corp. had acquired the major portion of Sparrows Point's 12-year-old cold mill, the newest part of an old facility. Nucor's president, John Ferriola, told the trade publication that the acquisition would be used for upgrades and to replace parts at the company's own mills.

The owners of the Sparrows Point steel mill plan to raze the closed plant, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said Thursday, as political leaders from Towson to Washington mourned the loss of a landmark that once employed tens of thousands. The officials, including Gov. Martin O'Malley, vowed to help steelworkers who have lost their jobs. But the head of United Steelworkers Local 9477 was angry that a key part of the plant is being sold to North Carolina-based Nucor Corp. — to be used for spare parts.

A pioneering regional compact to fight climate change stands at a crossroads, as officials from Maryland and eight other Northeast states meet Tuesday in New York to weigh new limits on their power plants' carbon dioxide emissions. With emissions significantly reduced since the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative began in 2008 - though mainly from other factors - the states are weighing how much lower to try to push carbon-dioxide releases through the end of the decade without risking stifling their economic recovery.

While Chesapeake Bay pollution from sewage plants and industries has declined overall in recent years, illegal discharges from those sources are still dumping significant amounts of water-fouling nutrients into the troubled estuary, says a Washington-based environmental group. In a new report, the Environmental Integrity Project finds significant gaps persist in Maryland and the other bay watershed states in enforcement of municipal and industrial water pollution, including lax permitting and infrequent inspections.

Kettle Hill has closed. Inspired by the life and spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, Kettle Hill opened April 20 on Market Place as the anchor restaurant in the Power Plant Live complex. The team behind Kettle Hill were Keystone Hospitality partners Desmond Reilly and Kristopher Carr. In a nightlife review of Kettle Hill, The Baltimore Sun's Wesley Case wrote that "Kettle Hill is a strong anchor for Power Plant Live's needed face-lift, which includes the additions of Joe Squared and Leinenkugel Beer Garden.

The Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant shut down one of its reactors Tuesday after employees at the southern Maryland facility detected problems with a control rod. Operators took the plant's Unit 1 reactor offline around 8:30 a.m. to replace one of the electrical coils connected to a control rod and test all the other control rods, said Kory Raftery, a spokesman for Calvert Cliffs. The move came after monitoring of the reactor picked up "electrical noise" in that control rod, a sign that part of the connection might have gone bad, he said.

Glass bottles moved briskly along new manufacturing lines - some filling with rum, others with tequila - as the plant manager explained just how groundbreaking this was for a site used to a more sedate pace. The Baltimore County plant now can fill up to 300 bottles a minute, compared with 120 to 180 before the switch, said Matt Brownlee. Diageo PLC, a multinational alcoholic-beverage company based in London, pumped just over $50 million into the facility, replacing 40-year-old equipment to speed things up. The new level of automation at the plant in Relay, off U.S. 1, requires fewer people to do the same amount of work.

Hospitals aren't the only places where people can pick up a nasty "superbug. " A  University of Maryland -led team of researchers has found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , or MRSA, at sewage treatment plants in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. MRSA is a well-known problem in hospitals, where patients have picked up potentially fatal bacterial infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment.  But since the late 1990s, it's also been showing up in otherwise healthy people outside of health-care facilities, prompting a search for sources in the wider community.