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By Russell Fish, Robert Greaves and Deborah Goldblum |
From the early 1900s through the 1980s, the 27 acres off of Caroline Street along a stretch of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was bustling with activity from the Allied Signal Baltimore Works facility, a chromium processing plant.
In 1985 operations ceased, leaving chromium-contaminated groundwater to create yellow ice in the harbor during winters. The community was left with a vacant brownfield property.
Today, that same 27 acres is on the verge of booming again with a successful cleanup and a $400-million redevelopment project in the works. The Harbor Point project connects the revitalized Inner Harbor — home of the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the Maryland Science Center, shops and restaurants — with the adjacent historic Fells Point community.
Harbor Point will include green design office buildings, a hotel, a waterfront park, a public waterfront promenade and engineered green space. Harbor Point will create jobs and tax dollars and reduce sprawl by reusing urban land. The vision of converting a heavily-contaminated former industrial facility into a community asset is becoming a reality.
Site History
The former Allied Signal Baltimore Works facility was constructed in the mid-nineteenth
century on approximately 20 acres of waterfront property. Chromium ore was processed
at the facility for the production of chromium chemicals. Environmental investigations
in the early- to mid-1980s found significant quantities of chromium migrating
from the site into the harbor and groundwater.
In 1989, EPA and the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) entered into a consent decree with Allied Signal for further investigation and cleanup of the Baltimore Works facility. This consent decree was unique because in addition to outlining a containment remedy and cleanup goals for the site, it also anticipated the future reuse of the site.
More specifically, the consent decree called for a slurry wall and cap to eliminate exposure, a groundwater pumping system to contain groundwater, monitoring and cleanup goals to provide protection, and agency approval of redevelopment plans to ensure that any development did not interfere with the remedy.
The subsequent investigation, remedy selection, dismantlement of the former plant and remedy construction took more than 10 years and $100 million to complete. The result is complete containment with an ongoing monitoring program that continues to demonstrate that the remedy is meeting the cleanup goals. Allied Signal (now known as Honeywell) remains perpetually responsible for monitoring and maintenance of the containment structure and the environment around the property.
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