Thursday, April 19, 2018 at 7 PM the Maryland Department of Environment is taking public comment on Sparrows Point break-bulk shipping terminal operator Access World (USA) LLC’s application to construct a 1800 ton per hour slag grinding and pulverizing mill at the previous 3100 acre steel manufacturing complex.
Records indicate 2600 of the 3100 acres are slag deposits from 130 years of steel production.
Currently 9000 tons per hour of slag are being grinded and pulverized at the Superfund site.
With approval of the new grinder/pulverizers the total will be 11,000 tons per hour or 550 dump-trucks per hour.
Fort Howard Community Association has contacted the Environmental Protection Agency Senior Toxicologist and Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator Office of Enforcement, Compliance and Environmental Justice Mr. Reggie Harris, Maryland Department of Environment Mrs. Barbara Brown, and Trade Point Atlantic Industrialist Hygienist Mr. Peter Haid requesting Air Particulate Monitoring Stations in Fort Howard, Maryland to monitor the migrating fugitive dust onto the Fort Howard Peninsula potentially infiltrating homes, lawns, pets, pools, toys, and cars.
Historically, sulfur dioxide, kish, VOC’s, and the infamous “red dust,” air contamination and pollution from the site has been well documented for the past 130 years.
EPA advises air pollutants with diameters 2.5 micron and less can pass through lung tissue into the bloodstream causing cardiac and respiratory illness such as asthma.
In a recent Baltimore Sun and Dundalk Eagle news articles, Fort Howard Community and Turner’s Station residents testified at a MDE Sparrows Point water quality hearing of their childhood experiences of lung scarring, asthma, and tuberculosis resulting from industrial air pollution attributed to past activities at the former steel mill site.
Maryland has been identified in the past having a higher incident of cancer than national averages.
Fort Howard Community Association is requesting placement of air monitoring stations at surrounding elementary schools.
Dust on shoes from walking on lawn in Fort Howard, Maryland. November 2017
Click HERE for a pdf file of the Access World (USA) LLC’s MDE grinding operation application.
For more information call 410-477-2040 or email forthoward.org
Kathleen Labuda
Secretary/Treasurer
FHCA
“It’s our community, let’s take care of it”
