Maryland Creek Added To Superfund Cleanup Program With Delaware Site Also Proposed

Annapolis MD

28 March, 2022

5:39 PM

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By Timothy B. Wheeler, the Chesapeake Bay Journal Mar 23, 2022 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving to clean up a contaminated creek bottom near Baltimore while also proposing to act on polluted groundwater near Georgetown, DE. The EPA announced March 18 that it is adding Bear Creek, a tidal tributary of the Patapsco River, to its Superfund National Priorities List, making the cleanup eligible for federal funding. The same day, the agency announced it is proposing to add the Georgetown North groundwater site. A 60-acre area of Bear Creek's bottom sediment is contaminated with toxic metals and organic chemicals that were discharged in wastewater or stormwater runoff from a steel mill that operated on the adjoining Sparrows Point peninsula from 1887 to 2013, according to the EPA. Under a consent agreement, the former mill site is being cleaned up by Tradepoint Atlantic, the company redeveloping the peninsula. But responsibility for the offshore contamination was limited by the bankruptcy of the mill's long-time owner, Bethlehem Steel Corp. With the creek now in the Superfund program, the EPA said it plans to conduct a more comprehensive investigation of the sediment contamination and evaluate potential remedies. In Delaware, groundwater beneath about one square mile of mixed commercial and residential use is contaminated with tetrachloroethylene, a likely cancer-causing solvent that's been traced back to two dry cleaning operations there that used it. Georgetown installed a treatment system in 2017 to remove the chemical from its drinking water wells, but contamination persists in the groundwater, posing a threat of toxic vapors seeping into homes and buildings. The EPA is taking public comments through May 17 on its proposal to add the Georgetown North groundwater cleanup to its Superfund program. For more information, go here. (As originally posted, the story gave the wrong comment deadline for the proposed Delaware site. Bay Journal regrets the error.) The Chesapeake Bay Journal is a nonprofit news organization covering environmental issues in the Bay region. Sign up for a free subscription at BayJournal.com.