Scrap Yard

A Frederick County man convicted of stealing $5,000 worth of used tire rims in Carroll County last year received an 18-month jail sentence yesterday.Steven Eugene Grimes, 24, who lives with his ailing mother in Thurmont, could have received up to the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, given his prior record, said Assistant State's Attorney Brian L. DeLeonardo.But Carroll Circuit Judge Francis M. Arnold decided "to take a chance" on Grimes, and recommended that he be granted work release.

Dropping a legal bomb on a small Southwest Baltimore area long accustomed to explosions, a state appeals court has cleared the way for residents to sue a scrap metal yard -- and possibly shifted the balance of power in disputes between communities and their industrial neighbors.The Court of Special Appeals decision, filed Friday by Judge Andrew Sonner, was hailed in tiny Mill Hill, where residents have complained for three decades of explosions, dust, and soot from neighboring United Iron & Metal Co.As word of the decision spread across the city, lawyers and community activists involved in environmental disputes -- from a West Baltimore landfill to a Wagner's Point chemical company -- scrambled for copies.

Garden snakes, dead rats and scrap metal have led to the lengthiest jail sentence in Baltimore's history of code enforcement violations for a Park Heights man, authorities say.Alan Verschleisser, who owns Potter's Salvage, could be released today from the Baltimore City Detention Center. He was sentenced to 30 days for civil contempt. Twenty days of the sentence were suspended, but if Verschleisser fails to clean up the scrap yard at his Baker Street property in West Baltimore by Oct. 22, he would serve the rest of the sentence.

Three Southwest Baltimore families have won $72,775 in damages from United Iron & Metal Co. after they claimed the scrap metal dealer that processes 200 million pounds of steel each year polluted the community, made their children sick and rocked the area with frequent explosions.The damages were awarded this week by a Baltimore Circuit Court jury after a two-week trial before Circuit Judge John Themelis."The explosions were really horrible. The first time we heard it there was a big, loud noise and I though the roof had collapsed," said Mortaza Sholough, who lives in the 900 block of S. Brunswick St., about 75 yards from United Iron & Metal's 18-acre scrap yard at 2545 Wilkens Ave.Sholough and two neighbors filed suit in January last year, claiming that the frequent explosions of vehicle gas tanks being compacted at the plant rocked their houses and caused structural damage.

A city judge has dismissed a suit brought by Southwest Baltimore neighbors of a noisy automobile scrap yard, ruling that residents filed their suit 51 years too late against the longtime polluter.Last week, Baltimore Circuit Judge Hilary D. Caplan threw out the suit filed in February 1993 by neighbors of United Iron and Metal Co., which operates the 18-acre scrap yard behind the 2600 block of Wilkens Ave. in the Mill Hill community.In dismissing the case before it came to trial, Judge Caplan stated that the time for filing the suit ran out three years after the scrap yard became a nuisance -- in 1939.

By now, the Southwest Baltimore residents of Mill Hill thought they would be rid of the explosions and the filth from the automobile scrap yard in their back yard.But nearly two years after the United Iron and Metal Co. signed a consent order promising to make changes to reduce air and noise pollution in its yard, little has been done, say neighbors and government officials.Occasional explosions from erupting gas tanks still rock houses and rattle windows.Blue air and pieces of "fluff" from shredded automobile upholstery still float into their yards.

The city's zoning board overruled Baltimore's housing commissioner yesterday for ordering a permit without a public hearing for an automobile shredding system at a controversial Southwest Baltimore metal scrap yard.The board then turned around -- after holding the public hearing -- and approved the new shredding system with more than a dozen new restrictions aimed at protecting nearby residents from air and noise pollution.The United Iron and Metal scrap yard, owned by the David Joseph Co., is behind the 2600 block of Wilkens Ave. in the community of Mill Hill.

Baltimore's housing commissioner has reversed the city's position in a neighborhood dispute over a metal scrap yard and ordered the zoning office to issue a permit for an automobile shredding system without a public hearing.The action by Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III last month has angered Southwest Baltimore community leaders in Mill Hill. They have battled United Iron and Metal, the noisy, air-polluting scrap yard in their back yard, for more than 40 years.The permit was issued Sept.

After decades of living next to an automobile scrap yard, the people of Mill Hill say they've had enough of the window-shattering explosions, flying car parts and air pollution that's so thick it turns their white marble steps gray.Several homeowners -- frustrated that their complaints to government agencies haven't reduced the noise and air pollution in their Southwest Baltimore community -- are suing the United Iron and Metal Co., owner of the scrap yard that shreds automobiles and compacts them into large cubes.

Once every couple of weeks, a sharp explosion rattles the walls of Bill Irwin's office overseeing the junk car shredder at a Baltimore scrap yard.Another air bag has been triggered inside the United Iron & Metal Co. shredding machine that every day grinds 600 cars into scrap metal. The noise scares Mr. Irwin.But scarier still are the air bags that don't explode. If the shredder tears up an air bag without setting it off, the scrap and air could become contaminated with the toxic chemical hidden deep inside the steering column.

In Baltimore County, violent crime is down, but incidents of theft are up. What's driven the increase is the lucrative market for scrap metal that has thieves yanking copper pipes out of the walls of vacant apartments and swiping catalytic converters from parked cars with the help of nothing more exotic than a cordless saw. Between 2005 and last year, theft of valuable metal has increased 500 percent in the county, police report. It now represents nearly 2 percent of all the burglary and theft cases investigated by the county police.

It's not exactly something that grabs your attention as you speed along a busy highway. "You don't even give a tow truck on the side of the road a second glance," said Frank Greene of Sparks. "You say, 'Yep, they're picking up a car.' " You don't think about it until it's your car, and you didn't give permission to have it towed. That's what happened to a 1991 Volkswagen GTI owned by Greene and used by his 21-year-old son Christopher, a student at University of Maryland, Baltimore County who spent countless hours restoring the vehicle and giving it a fresh coat of black paint, only to have the alternator and battery go dead May 4 on the Beltway near Liberty Road.

Scrap yard fire forces traffic away from tunnel A multiple-alarm fire at a South Baltimore scrap yard last night caused Maryland Transportation Authority Police to divert late-night traffic approaching the Harbor Tunnel for more than an hour onto other routes. Reported at 9:43 p.m., the fire in the Fairfield area sent heavy smoke across a bridge near Frankfurst Avenue south of the Interstate 895 toll plaza, said Cpl. Jonathan Green, a Transportation Authority Police spokesman. Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman, said the fire broke out at Baltimore Scrap Yard in the 1600 block of Carbon Ave. and involved a scrap heap more than 40 feet tall.

Military personnel from Andrews Air Force Base hauled away yesterday a 40- to 50-year-old inert bomb discovered over the weekend in a pile of mangled iron at an East Baltimore scrap yard. The four-foot bomb - which lacked fins, a fuse and explosives - was discovered Sunday as workers at Cambridge Iron and Metal Co. were moving scrap, the facility's owner said. The workers set it aside and called military personnel at Aberdeen Proving Ground on Monday. Inspectors arrived Wednesday at the facility near the 900 block of S. Kresson St. and hauled it away yesterday, said owner Neal Shapiro.

Military personnel from Andrews Air Force Base today hauled away a 40- to 50-year-old inert bomb discovered over the weekend in a pile of mangled iron at an East Baltimore scrap yard. The four-foot bomb which lacked fins, a fuse or explosives was discovered Sunday as workers at Cambridge Iron and Metal Co. were moving scrap, the facility's owner said. The workers set it aside and called military personnel at Aberdeen Proving Ground on Monday. Inspectors arrived Wednesday at the facility near the 900 block of S. Kresson St. and hauled it away today, said owner Neal Shapiro.

Army explosives experts destroyed the 12 bombs found in a ship scrap yard on Baltimore's waterfront and discovered that they were practice weapons full of concrete -- not explosives as authorities had suspected, a military spokeswoman said yesterday. "Usually, the military uses plaster or concrete munitions like this for training purposes," said Pat McClung, a spokeswoman for Aberdeen Proving Ground, where the bombs were buried and then blown open with explosives. The proving ground's High Explosives Team dug up the remnants of the bombs after the demolition Saturday, McClung said.

Garden snakes, dead rats and scrap metal have led to the lengthiest jail sentence in Baltimore's history of code enforcement violations for a Park Heights man, authorities say.Alan Verschleisser, who owns Potter's Salvage, could be released today from the Baltimore City Detention Center. He was sentenced to 30 days for civil contempt. Twenty days of the sentence were suspended, but if Verschleisser fails to clean up the scrap yard at his Baker Street property in West Baltimore by Oct. 22, he would serve the rest of the sentence.

Dropping a legal bomb on a small Southwest Baltimore area long accustomed to explosions, a state appeals court has cleared the way for residents to sue a scrap metal yard -- and possibly shifted the balance of power in disputes between communities and their industrial neighbors.The Court of Special Appeals decision, filed Friday by Judge Andrew Sonner, was hailed in tiny Mill Hill, where residents have complained for three decades of explosions, dust, and soot from neighboring United Iron & Metal Co.As word of the decision spread across the city, lawyers and community activists involved in environmental disputes -- from a West Baltimore landfill to a Wagner's Point chemical company -- scrambled for copies.

A Frederick County man convicted of stealing $5,000 worth of used tire rims in Carroll County last year received an 18-month jail sentence yesterday.Steven Eugene Grimes, 24, who lives with his ailing mother in Thurmont, could have received up to the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, given his prior record, said Assistant State's Attorney Brian L. DeLeonardo.But Carroll Circuit Judge Francis M. Arnold decided "to take a chance" on Grimes, and recommended that he be granted work release.

Three Southwest Baltimore families have won $72,775 in damages from United Iron & Metal Co. after they claimed the scrap metal dealer that processes 200 million pounds of steel each year polluted the community, made their children sick and rocked the area with frequent explosions.The damages were awarded this week by a Baltimore Circuit Court jury after a two-week trial before Circuit Judge John Themelis."The explosions were really horrible. The first time we heard it there was a big, loud noise and I though the roof had collapsed," said Mortaza Sholough, who lives in the 900 block of S. Brunswick St., about 75 yards from United Iron & Metal's 18-acre scrap yard at 2545 Wilkens Ave.Sholough and two neighbors filed suit in January last year, claiming that the frequent explosions of vehicle gas tanks being compacted at the plant rocked their houses and caused structural damage.