City settles CSX lawsuit over dumped sewage water

Baltimore agreed to a $100,000 settlement Wednesday to close out a lawsuit filed by rail company CSX after a city contractor dumped sewage-tainted water at the company’s Curtis Bay coal terminal while a city inspector was using the bathroom.

The settlement, approved unanimously Wednesday by the Board of Estimates, stemmed from a 2018 incident in which a city contractor was working on one of several large sanitary sewer lines that runs beneath CSX’s property in South Baltimore.

According to Kurt Heinrich, a city attorney, rinse water and sediment from the sewer line was being pulled into a vacuum truck. When the truck became full, it was supposed to be “decanted” at another location, Heinrich said. Decanting is a process by which water is separated from sewage sludge.

Instead, the contractor decanted the water into a drainage ditch on the CSX property, Heinrich said. That ditch fed into the company’s water filtration system for the property, he said.

According to the lawsuit filed by CSX in federal court, equipment at the facility came into contact with raw sewage, as did the facility’s water filtration system and coal stored there. CSX hired an outside contractor to assist with cleanup afterward and incurred costs of at least $1.8 million, the lawsuit states.

While the city was not directly responsible for the contractor’s actions, a rightof-entry agreement signed by CSX and the city made Baltimore liable for any damage to the property. City inspectors were also responsible for monitoring the contractor’s work on a 24-hour basis.

The settlement approved Wednesday covers only the city’s responsibility in the case. CSX has also sued Spiniello Companies, the contractor who was working on the site. That claim is ongoing, Heinrich said.

A spokesman for CSX declined to comment. A representative for Spiniello did not respond to a request for comment.

“This is not a settlement of a negligence claim,” Heinrich said. “It goes to breach of contract, and that’s the right of entry agreement in which the city ensures it will monitor activity of its own employees and contractors.”

Angela Cornish, a construction project supervisor for the Department of Public Works, told the board an inspector was on the site, but that he was using the bathroom at the time of the incident.

Comptroller Bill Henry, one of five members of the city spending board, asked whether the inspector was reprimanded as a result of the incident. Cornish said the inspector was not disciplined.

“A CSX staff member said, ‘We saw this,’ ” Cornish said. “It was not a failure on our part to report. The inspector at the time had stepped away.”