Read the full article by Josh Kurtz (Maryland Matters)
“Industrial facilities dumped at least 94,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, including PFAS, into Maryland’s waterways in 2020, according to a report released Wednesday by the Maryland PIRG Foundation.
The startling and sobering report, ‘Wasting Our Waterways,‘ takes statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory for 2020 and puts the health of Maryland’s waterways in the context of broader national environmental trends.
‘Our children deserve a safe and healthy future,’ said Maryland PIRG State Director Emily Scarr. ‘Yet polluters too often recklessly dispose of chemicals linked to cancer, developmental and reproductive damage. It’s time to stop this toxic dumping, and hold polluters accountable for the harm they cause to public health and the environment.’
Major findings in the report include:
- Polluters dumped 6.2 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the Brandywine-Christina Watershed, the third-highest volume dumped into any watershed in the country, in neighboring Delaware and Pennsylvania, which runs into Cecil County in Maryland.
- The facility releasing the most toxic chemicals in Maryland was Grace Davison-Curtis Bay Works in Southwest Baltimore, a chemical plant which emitted 79,000 pounds of chemicals into the Gunpowder-Patapsco rivers watershed. The plant has been the object of multiple government regulatory actions over the last several years.
- Using the EPA’s tool to measure relative toxicity (because some chemicals pose more risk to human health than others) showed that United States Gypsum Co. in Baltimore released more toxicity than any single facility in Maryland. That company, which manufactures construction products, released 240,000 pounds into the Gunpowder-Patapsco watershed.” …