by MARK REUTTER
     Environmental regulators are asking the Sparrows Point steel mill to prepare final cleanup procedures at three sites where chemical wastes have been buried for decades. Although the sites were part of a court-ordered cleanup in 1997, this is the first time regulators are requiring corrective measures, rather than open-ended studies, to handle the waste.

     The directive, however, does not address pollution leaking from the sites into Baltimore Harbor, raising the hackles of critics who say such “off-site” cleanup is required under the 12-year-old consent decree signed by Bethlehem Steel Corp., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE).

     Jon Mueller, director of litigation for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the directive does not go far enough to enforce the law. “While we are encouraged that the agencies are finally moving forward to tackle pollution at the Point,” he said Friday, “we are disappointed that they have not issued a unilateral order for the investigation and remediation of offsite contamination.”

     State regulators recently ordered Severstal, the current owner of Sparrows Point, to investigate “off-site” pollution from benzene leaking into Baltimore Harbor from the abandoned coke oven plant.

     The three new sites – Greys Landfill, a sludge bin storage area and a filled-in creek known as Humphrey Impoundment – have been the subjects of technical studies that have dragged on for decades.

CLICK TO ENLARGE. Sources: Description of Current Conditions, Sparrows Point, Rust Environmental, 1998; Screening Level Ecological Risk Assessment for On-Site Areas, URS Corp., 2009.

     The most recent study found that more than 25 chemicals designated as hazardous by EPA – including arsenic, lead, mercury, cyanide and benzene derivatives – were present in surface soil around the sites.

     At eight monitoring wells along Bear Creek, for example, chemical concentrations of cadmium and zinc were 100 times or more above federal safe drinking water standards.

     Greys Landfill and the sludge bin storage area are located less than a mile from Turners Station and other residential areas of Dundalk. Interstate-695 passes alongside the sites as it approaches the east end of Key Bridge.

     Some “interim” measures have been completed at the sites. Pumping wells were installed to treat polluted groundwater at the sludge bin storage area. Greys Landfill has been re-graded with a less steep vertical slope and vegetation planted.

     Barbara H. Brown, MDE’s coordinator for Sparrows Point, cautioned that the new directive would not result in the immediate clean up of the sites. Instead, it would hasten completion of a plan for cleanup. The actual physical work of remediation would probably take many months, if not longer, to get under way.

     “It’s simply not possible from a scientific or regulatory viewpoint to put in place a remediation plan of the magnitude required by Sparrows Point quickly,” she said in an interview.

     Jon Mueller said the Bay Foundation plans to submit to EPA and MDE its recommendations for a broader cleanup this week. He said the environmental group will press the agencies “to order an offsite investigation of Bear Creek and, if the steel company resists, to do the remediation [themselves] and recover three times the cost of the work under federal statutes.”

     The Bay Foundation has threatened to sue EPA, MDE and the current and former owners of Sparrows Point for their alleged failure to enforce the 1997 consent decree. Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper and several Baltimore County residents have joined in the proposed action.

     Abraham Ferdas, chief of the chemicals division of EPA Region 3, issued the new directive. Last week, federal and state regulators met in Philadelphia with representatives of Severstal and Mittal Steel, a prior owner of Sparrows Point, to discuss the cleanup plan.

- Mark Reutter can be reached at reuttermark@yahoo.com.