Scrap

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office said on Friday that deputies arrested four men in the theft of scrap metal in Mount Airy this week. Police said Travis Waddell, 19,  Branden Battle, 19, and Adam Nicholas Toth, 22, all from Mount Airy; and Dwayne Douglas Frazier, 32, of Boyds, were each charged with trespassing and theft. In addition, Waddell was charged with possession of marijuana. The Sheriff's Office said that on Thursday, Nov. 1, at about 1:45 p.m., deputies were called to the 5800 block of Bethel Road in Mount Airy to investigate a theft complaint.

Talk about leading by example -- the Maryland Department of the Environment announced Monday that it would begin collecting food scraps at its Baltimore headquarters for composting. The Earth Day announcement comes on the heels of Howard County launching its own food-scrap processing facility, which I covered here for The Baltimore Sun. MDE will give its 900-plus employees the option to compost their uneaten food at the agency's main offices in Montgomery Park. Officials there say they hope in the effort's inaugural year to divert more than 6 tons of waste that might otherwise have gone to an incinerator or landfill.

Charles Campbell's commentary is a concise and well presented argument for a reconsideration of President Obama's refusal to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and for a revamping of our energy policies ("D.C.'s Keystone Kops," Jan. 30). The article should be read by all of out political leaders, and I'm speaking from the point of view of an Obama supporter and liberal-leaning Independent. Dianne Salmon

Howard Hord considers himself a chef of sorts, but the food he works with is a little past its prime. Using moldy melon rinds, orange peels and other castoff fruit and vegetables from some Howard County kitchens, Hord is "cooking" the first batches of plant fertilizer to be produced by the new composting facility at the county's Alpha Ridge landfill in Marriottsville, set to mark its official opening on Monday, Earth Day. Hord, the landfill's operations...

Three Baltimore scrap metal companies have pleaded guilty to improperly buying metal, after a city crackdown on thieves who strip metal from vacant houses to sell.Each of the companies did not keep accurate records of their transactions and did not submit transaction sheets to police officials, as required by law. Police detectives depend on dealers to record who brought in the metal, in case the materials were stolen.Industrial Metals-Early Corp. of the 1500 block of N. Warwick Ave. was fined $800, Franklintown Metals & Cores of the 100 block of McPhail St. was fined $450 and Baltimore Scrap Corp.

Union Bridge officials said yesterday that they will probably scrap a proposal to start fining property owners for repeat nuisance calls that tie up their police service, but are hoping to come up with another solution. Mayor Bret D. Grossnickle said the council will likely start looking for other options in dealing with repeated police calls to the same addresses for loud music, drinking, arguing and fighting. Grossnickle's comments came the day after residents overflowed Monday night's public hearing in nearly unanimous opposition to a proposed ordinance that they characterized as overly punitive, possibly illegal and a deterrent to calling police for help.

Anne Arundel County police checking out a suspected shoplifter charged with stealing building supplies stumbled upon illegal scrap metal operation and charged two Baltimore men and a Glen Burnie man with stealing street and construction signs.The men allegedly sold the signs and a stolen aluminum boat to a scrap dealer in the 300 block of Washington Blvd. in Baltimore, police said.Officers became interested in the Glen Burnie man last week after seeing reports in which he was charged with stealing building supplies.

It is the nuclear age equivalent of beating swords into plowshares: the conversion of mildly radioactive scrap metal from the United States' obsolete defense arsenal into a vast array of consumer products. The Cold War rubble has become raw material for I-beams and automobiles, jewelry and silverware, leg braces and hip replacements. However, as the volume of radioactive recyclables mushrooms, the federal government still lacks uniform health standards for safely disposing of the material.

An undercover police detective posing as a hobo sold $2.60 worth of scrap metal to the United Iron and Metal Co., and now the Baltimore-based company is charged with 10 criminal violations that could bring up to $26,000 in fines.The charges, filed Tuesday, allege that United Iron has been violating a city public ordinance requiring buyers of scrap metal to file records of their transactions with the city Police Department.Detectives began the investigation after the recent arrest of a homeless man who said he stole brass placards off downtown buildings and sold them to a scrap metal dealer, said police Sgt. Michael Tabor.

A military spokesman said yesterday that more bombs could remain hidden under debris at a former ship scrap yard on the Baltimore waterfront where 12 explosives were discovered this week. Ned Christensen, spokesman for the Army's Fort Myer in Arlington, Va., said the bombs found by construction workers in Fairfield were part of a heap of scrap metal more than 20 feet high and that several similar piles nearby have not been searched. "Large ships were dismantled there, and there is scrap and debris all over the place.

Mount St. Mary's coach Tom Gravante admitted that he erred when he didn't give the players the day off after a road game against Virginia. The team followed up that 18-11 loss to the Cavaliers on Feb. 26 with a 13-5 setback to Towson on March 2. Since then, Gravante has adjusted his coaching philosophy, giving the Mountaineers (4-4) a day off after contests. The change appears to be working as the team followed a day off after 19-9 loss to Johns Hopkins on March 5 with a 16-7 rout of Manhattan last Saturday and then a day off after Manhattan with a 14-6 thumping of Georgetown this past Tuesday.

I want to start a compost pile, but I'm worried that kitchen scraps will attract animals from the woods nearby. Any thoughts? Usually kitchen scraps are a small portion of a pile's ingredients. Most kitchen scraps are small pieces, damaged or bruised. They begin decomposing while still in the pail. Kitchen compost pails made with lids that have a filter are very effective is eliminating odor. By the time you dump the pail, scraps are usually beyond being palatable to animals. Throw other organic matter on top. You can also bury the scraps in garden soil.

It doesn't really come as much of a shock that a small amount of radioactive material turned up in a salvage yard on Aberdeen Proving Ground. The post, after all, was established at a time when scientific research into radiation was in its infancy and nuclear energy was the stuff of a relatively new genre of literature, science fiction. Beyond that, APG, being a proving ground, was, and remains, a place where a fair amount of experimentation on the latest findings of science is done.

The O'Malley administration's decision to scrap its plans to build a $70 million youth jail in Baltimore is a major win for the city and its youth. It is made possible both by the significant successes of recent years in reducing violent crime and by a renewed effort on the part of the Department of Juvenile Services to place troubled youth in more appropriate settings, and it will end the deplorable practice of housing juveniles charges as adults in an adult jail. It is a credit to the advocates who have been fighting against the plan, and it deserves the legislature's support.

After years of community opposition, state officials have abandoned plans to build a new Baltimore jail for juveniles charged as adults, citing declines in youth crimes as they unveiled a plan Wednesday to send more teens to treatment programs and renovate a smaller facility for defendants in violent offenses. The $73 million plan, which needs approval from the General Assembly, lays the groundwork for a shift in the state's approach to teen crime in Baltimore. The state has faced persistent criticism over existing conditions for young defendants, but a proposal to build a new facility for juveniles raised concern that officials were not doing enough to deter children from lives of violence.

The governor of Virginia has thrown a new wrinkle into a Maryland debate by calling for abolition of the commonwealth's gas tax and increasing the sales tax to pay for roads and transit - a move that would alter the competitive balance between the two states. This week's proposal by Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, is part of a five-year $3.1 billion plan that seeks to address that state's lack of money for transportation projects - which parallels a similar shortfall in Maryland - by shifting from a dwindling revenue source to one with the potential to grow with inflation.

County police checking out a suspected shoplifter charged with stealing building supplies stumbled upon an illegal scrap-metal operation and charged two Baltimore men and a Glen Burnie man with stealing street and construction signs.The men were allegedly selling the signs and other metal items to a scrap dealer on Washington Boulevard in Baltimore, police said.A team of Northern District officers became interested in the Glen Burnie man last week after seeing several reports in which he was charged with stealing building supplies and began watching the man's home in the 300 block of Glenwood Ave. A detective drove by Thursday and saw a pickup truck with with about 50 directional street and construction signs in the bed.The detective followed two men in the truck to a scrap-metal dealer in the 3500 block of Washington Blvd.

WASHINGTON - Provoked by the sluggish pace of dismantling decrepit American ships, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are clashing on how best to prod the U.S. Maritime Administration to rid the country's waterways of these spectral, contaminated vessels. As part of a much larger bill setting spending limits for the Defense Department, the House voted yesterday to require that all such ships be sold overseas for scrap, a controversial practice that has caused deaths, serious injuries and environmental hazards.

Baltimore officials said Monday they are scrapping all 83 of the city's automated speed cameras and "methodically" replacing them with newer models, after a Baltimore Sun investigation found errors with the system. The overhaul, estimated to cost about $450,000, comes after the city's new speed camera contractor, Brekford Corp., analyzed Baltimore's system and concluded the only way to cut down on the errors was to replace all the cameras with newer models, the company said. Maurice R. Nelson, managing director of Brekford, said hiring enough employees and police officers to catch all the errors the old cameras were generating would be too expensive.

Anne Arundel County will not revive the new emergency dispatch system that it unplugged a year ago, but will instead scrap it and modernize its old system. Launched in December 2011, the new dispatch system operated for just three weeks before it was shut down when law enforcement officials and fire chiefs were besieged by complaints from police officers, firefighters and dispatchers, officials said. The county could not immediately provide figures on how much money it spent specifically on the computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, system, but officials said the county has paid an overall $6.2 million on a $6.6 million technology contract that included the dispatch component.