http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.ci.park25apr25,0,6693025.story?coll=bal-baltimorecity-alsosee
From the Baltimore Sun
State orders probe of arsenic's extent
MDE gives city, Honeywell 30 days to submit plan for broad
investigation at Swann Park
By Nicole Fuller
sun reporter
April 25, 2007
The Maryland Department of the Environment ordered Baltimore officials
and a private company yesterday to begin immediately planning for a
broad investigation into the extent of the arsenic pollution at a
long-shuttered South Baltimore plant and an adjacent public park, which
was closed last week after high levels of the poison were discovered in
the soil.
Swann Park is next to an industrial site where the former Allied
Chemical Corp. used arsenic to make pesticides before closing in 1976.
The company merged in 1999 with Honeywell, which recently disclosed
findings of arsenic levels more than 100 times higher than is
considered safe.
MDE has given the city and Honeywell 30 days to submit a plan requiring
soil and groundwater sampling and cleanup. The parties have 120 days to
submit an environmental assessment and cleanup plan for the former
Allied site on nearby Race Street. MDE must approve both plans and will
oversee the process.
"As long as it gets done, we don't care how it gets done, if Honeywell
does it all or the city does it all," said Horacio Tablada, director of
the Waste Management Administration for MDE. "What we want to see is
what's in the park, to know exactly what's out there and to eliminate
any public health threat. ... In the end, we hope the park will be a
park that the people can use."
City Solicitor George Nilson said he had hoped the state would allot
more time to complete the plans for the investigation. "They've told us
to do a whole bunch of things on a site that we've had no involvement
in except running ball games," Nilson said. "We're basically starting
out on a clean slate with the park, and it does seem to me that the
30-day time that the state has set forward is a bit stringent and has
not really allowed for proceeding deliberatively. We have to hire a
consultant, go to the Board of Estimates. You don't just snap your
fingers and have a magic consultant come out of nowhere.
"We're going to do the job that should be done, which is the city
working with Honeywell to find out the nature and extent of the
conditions and look at the situation from a remediation point of view."
A spokesman for Honeywell could not be reached yesterday.
City Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein has asked an agency
of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to investigate
health risks posed by the arsenic.
Tests by Honeywell this month, which were turned over to the state
Thursday, showed arsenic levels of up to 2,200 parts per million.
The park was closed in 1976 when the pesticide kepone, manufactured by
Allied, was found in the soil. But a panel of federal, state and local
health officials allowed the park to be reopened that year -- though
tests showed high levels of arsenic there.
Experts say prolonged exposure to arsenic can cause cancer and can
lower IQ in children, and kepone is a toxic nerve-damaging agent.
The recent testing of the park's soil was prompted by 31-year-old
Allied company reports turned over to the state this month as part of
negotiations for a cleanup of the factory site on Race Street. The
confidential internal reports show that Allied tested the park in 1976
and found arsenic levels of up to 6,600 parts per million behind home
plate of a baseball diamond. But according to a memo at the time, the
state health director wanted discussions about the pollution kept quiet.
Honeywell, which merged with Allied's successor in 1999, turned over
Allied's documents about the pollution site to the state and city April
4.
nicole.fuller@baltsun.com
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun