Will our Beloved Chesapeake Bay Become a modern era Love Canal Toxic Zone!
The answer could surprisingly be YES!
My Early Roots are in Dundalk, specifically West Inverness. My Saturday mornings and other mornings were spent exploring a small woods directly on the extension of Lynch Road. I walked out of my backyard directly onto And even into Bear Creek! We had a pier into the creek from our Row homes where many families had a boat tied up. It wasn’t perfectly clean back then. And it’s not perfectly clean even today. But it wasn’t filled with PCB’s! Now Clean Harbors Environmental Services , the operator of the notorious Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant has contracted to accept potentially Millions of gallons of Toxic Waste water from East Palestine! This water could be described as that Rivals the contamination of Love Canal! The water is known to contain VINYL CHLORIDE,PCB's, and other toxic waste,and potentially Dioxin This isn’t a local problem, it’s a national problem! It’s a problem that the long term and even short term consequences could rival the multi-billion dollar ecological disaster of Love Canal!
I am asking every elected official to notify the EPA we will not accept this East Palestine train wreck from being disposed of in our backyard!
Yet, if no action is successful at stopping the release of refuse from East Palestine and it’s toxic sludge, now there will be A transformation of the Back River, Middle River, Bear Creek and the entire Chesapeake Bay, as the State Governor Wes Moore, acquiesced along with Mayor Brandon Scott! And Baltimore County Executive, Johnny Olszewski, Jr. and initially accepted the finality of the contract. The legacy of their period in office could easily become “The Dastardly Politicians that made the Chesapeake a Modern “Love Canal!”
The facility that has been contracted to “clean up the waste is the NOTORIOUS Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant! It’s record is replete with failure after failure.
Seldom do a few weeks go by without an E. Coli outbreak occurring in the Back River! Yet now the EPA has approved a contract with its owner Clean Harbors Environmental Services and Norfolk Southern Railroad to accept East Palestine Toxic Waste water. This facility just underwent an explosion within the last three weeks, when gases in the Centrifuge Building exploded!
This is a nightmare happening before our very eyes. I call on our Elected Officials to act on our behalf to stop this nightmare from becoming a reality!
Letters are great for average citizens. But these people are elected to represent us! They must demand that we say No! And request an Emergency meeting, three meetings. To say no! And that the gloves come off. M
The first action item is to File an emergency injunction to Stop the process at this moment.
The second is to attain a permanent injunction that will shutdown the process completely. It’s time to cease the operations of the facility to assure one Tanker car of toxic East Palestine waste is not pumped into the facility. Not one ounce let alone one gallon.
This clean up requires remediation of Millions upon millions of gallons of toxic sludge. We will potentially permanently destroy our habitability surrounding the Bay! We will will put our families at risk!
Love Canal was evacuated, all homes and businesses were bought out! We have an Estuary teaming with Shellfish, especially, our famous Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs, our succulent and mouth watering Bay Oysters, and the most prized fishery, where we have in recent times, finally replenished our Much Sought-after Chesapeake Striped Bass known to all of us as Rockfish! Our watermen and Fishermen depend upon Our Bay to earn their livelihoods! That could be placed into permanent Condemnation!
These Chemicals Including Vinyl Chloride are toxins, poisons when released into our water. There is a probability that at some level there is dioxin. A chemical used as a chemical weapon in past wars.
Worse PCB’s just like Those that contaminated LOVE CANAL ARE PERMANENT! They are described as “Forever Chemicals!”
These toxins are permanent, and accumulate over time in living organisms. Fish, shellfish, plant life! Our water fowl hunt for food and thrive off of the Bay’s fishery! They will accumulate it too! We will not be able to enjoy the bay and it’s activities it offers! These are carcinogens. They create genetic defects! Are we all rightfully up in arms Hell yes!
A politician once said that the Eastern Shore was the Outhouse of Maryland Politics! Well now the politicians and cynical owners of Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant are attempting to create a literary outhouse of our beloved Chesapeake Bay! Can we all stop it! Only If we are all engaged!
Here is a link to be able to send an email, make a call and fax The two executives who initially accepted then questioned the prudence of the decision. Yet there are people who complain that too many donations pass via Clean Harbors Environmental Services for them to put up a real fight, which if that’s true, we don’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of winning! But they stand a fantastic chance of losing in their upcoming election.
And then there is the infamous EPA! They are the agency with the mandate to clean up our Waterways, under President Obama under regulation, even attempted to regulate use of our land if we had recurring puddles on our land.
WORSE!
Yet today we see that the EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan, is threatening legal action if we attempt to stop this catastrophe from happening!
He will not dictate from on high, telling us how to handle our Beloved Bay!
It’s time to pick up the phones! Fax! And Email!
Say no! We have a letter that you can use with contact information here below.
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An example letter— please feel free to copy and paste.
Dear County Executive John Olszewski, Jr.
& Mayor Brandon Scott,
Gentlemen please accept my email in STRONG OPPOSITION to your decision to approve the contract between Clean Harbors Environmental Services and Norfolk Southern to accept the extremely toxic waste water from EAST PALESTINE TRAIN DERAILMENT that includes Vinyl Chloride, along with other toxins.
We do not want you to risk our family’s health nor the aquaculture of our bay! It must be cleaned up, but even after it is cleaned up, it must not be dumped anywhere in our precious And greatest estuary in the World, our Chesapeake Bay! If it is to be dumped after it is supposedly environmentally safe, let it be dumped into the oceans out at sea, hundreds of miles off the coast using tankers. We can not be the outhouse of the East coast for Norfolk Southern, nor for any amount of money received under contract to Clean Harbors Environmental Services! Our Bay is not for sale at any price. Please be the statesman we know you are and very diplomatically, just say, No, I have reconsidered after a strong outcry from my Baltimore County Citizens, and I must reverse my original decision, I hereby, reject the approval of any contract that will lead to the release of treated toxic hazardous waste water into our Precious Chesapeake Bay!
Thank you in advance for listening to my plea to reverse your decision and to assure the safety of my family especially my (grand)children and my neighbors.
Yours Truly,
Your Name
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And contact County Executive OLSZEWSKI, Jr., along with Baltimore’s Mayor Brandon Scott! Say No!
Email County Executive Olszewski
johnnyo@baltimorecountymd.gov
Call his office: (410) 887-2450
Fax his office: (410) 887-5781
Mayor Brandon Scott
Email: mayor@baltimorecity.gov
Phone Number: (410) 396-3835
Fax Number: (410) 576-9425
Phone Number: 410-396-4900
Replies
Finally, We have ACTION to stop the Discharge of East Palestine Toxic Waste Warer into our Bay via the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BALTIMORE, MD. (Monday, March 27, 2023) - Today, Mayor Brandon M. Scott issued the following statement regarding East Palestine Wastewater.
"Last Friday, I publicly expressed grave concerns with Environmental and Industrial remediation contractor, Clean Harbors' request to dispose of pretreated wastewater from the Norfolk Southern Railroad derailment into the Baltimore City wastewater collection system.
After legal review, the City's Law Department has determined that the Department of Public Works has the authority to modify discharge permits in an effort to 'safeguard Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW) from interference, pass-through, or contamination of treatment by-products.' As such, I have directed DPW to modify Clean Harbor's discharge permit to deny their request to discharge processed wastewater from the cleanup of the Norfolk Southern Railroad derailment into the City's wastewater system after processing at a Clean Harbors facility. Clean Harbors has facilities across the country that may be better positioned to dispose of the treated wastewater, and we urge them to explore those alternatives.
Make no mistake - I stand against any efforts that could comprise the health and safety of our residents, and the environment.
I extend my deepest sympathy to the East Palestine, Ohio community as they grapple with the effects of this devastating derailment on their community, but I must remain steadfast in my commitment to protect our residents - at all costs."
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