Maryland environmental bill draws concerns
A bill before the General Assembly this year has been hailed by Maryland’s environment secretary as a critical next step for incorporating environmental justice into state decision-making. But it doesn’t have the support of the community that the state government ranks as the most environmentally burdened in Maryland: South Baltimore’s Curtis Bay.
Community groups representing the neighborhood, which is surrounded by heavy industry, are concerned that the bill will attach new requirements only to certain types of facilities. And some of the biggest sources of air pollution — in Curtis Bay and across Maryland — are left out.
That exclusion has also drawn concern from residents in another Maryland community considered overburdened by pollution, Prince George’s County’s Brandywine, and other environmental advocacy groups. The legislation passed the House of Delegates this month in advance of a key deadline for moving legislation forward and is now awaiting consideration in the Senate’s environment committee.
In 2022, the Maryland Department of the Environment released an environmental justice, or EJ, screening tool to measure pollution burden. Using pollution exposure indicators, health outcomes and socioeconomic factors, the tool established an “EJ score” for each census tract in the state.
But state law doesn’t allow the MDE to use that score in its decision-making, including while it’s issuing permits to industrial sites such as landfills, hazardous waste facilities and manufacturing plants.
“If it’s a high score now, today, we simply say, ‘You need to really consider what you’re asking for because you’re impacting this particular community,’” Maryland Secretary of the Environment Serena McIlwain said during a hearing about the bill. “It’s just an ask.”
Under the legislation,
A pedestrian walks across the intersection of Church Street and Pennington Avenue in Curtis Bay, with the CSX coal piers in the background. businesses applying for certain permits in census tracts with an environmental justice score in the 75th percentile or higher would receive additional review. In Baltimore, for instance, about 77% of census tracts would be eligible.
In qualified census tracts, MDE would have the ability to attach extra conditions to a permit, or even deny it, depending on what type of permit it is.
McIlwain said her department is “not in the business of shutting down any businesses in Maryland” but touted the potential for extra conditions on permits with the new bill. The lead sponsors are Del. Regina Boyce and Sen. Michael Jackson, both Democrats.
To some community groups, the bill has glaring holes.
It would cover many air pollution permits for new construction, but not those that govern the continued operation of facilities that pollute the air, which are renewed periodically, said Leah Kelly, a senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan watchdog headquartered in Washington, D.C.
And because the bill covers only permits issued by the Department of the Environment, it wouldn’t include the construction or expansion of power plants or energy-generating incinerators, which get those permits from Maryland’s Public Service Commission, Kelly said.
In Curtis Bay, for instance, the new bill couldn’t be invoked when the MDE considers an air pollution permit renewal for the CSX coal terminal, which sends dark black coal dust wafting over the community, as documented by an MDE report released last year. It also wouldn’t include renewals for the trash incinerator nearby in the Westport area, or the medical waste incinerator across the creek in Hawkins Point.
“We’re quite alarmed by how the bill does not move toward providing the protection that affected EJ communities so desperately need — and have long been asking for,” said Toby Harris, an environmental justice coordinator at the nonprofit South Baltimore Community Land Trust, which represents Curtis Bay and several other South Baltimore neighborhoods.
It was a frustrating realization, Harris said, particularly after McIlwain visited Curtis Bay to listen to the community’s environmental justice concerns in April and promoted the bill as a major fix.
“It’s just a lot of rhetoric and words, and when you actually look at what’s happening and the impact, it’s very different,” Harris said.
During a hearing for the bill, McIlwain was asked whether cost played a role in excluding certain permits from the legislation.
“We would look at resources and funding as we continue on with this bill and start adding in more permits, if that’s something we look at going forward,” McIlwain said.
During the hearing, Les Knapp, director of the MDE’s government relations office, pointed to three considerations that were part of the calculus.
“One: Can we be consistent in our approach to both EJ communities that have genuine needs, and the regulated community? Two: Is it something that’s practical? Can we do it out of existing resources or with some additional resources without having extreme impact on permit turnaround times? And three: Is it something that’s legally sustainable?” he said.
The environmental department declined to comment further on the bill. The lead sponsors did not respond to requests for comment from The Baltimore Sun.
When it comes to water pollution permits, the bill takes a more comprehensive approach by including both new permits and their subsequent renewals, Kelly said.
Some environmental groups have suggested that adding Title V air pollution permits, which govern the operations of major sources of air pollution, such as incinerators, would help address its shortcomings.
“Without adding these permits, the bill will not address any existing major sources of air pollution,” said Rebecca Rehr, the director of Climate Policy and Justice at the Maryland League of Conservation Voters.
Although Title V is a federally managed program, Kelly said she “see[s] absolutely no reason” why Maryland’s legislation could not include those permits. A similar bill in New Jersey included Title V permits, she said.
But that idea has not gained traction in the General Assembly.
Sen. Mary Washington, a Democrat who sits on the Senate’s environment committee, said she has been studying overall improvements to the MDE’s permitting process.
Although major sources of air pollution are not included, Washington said the bill “would be a great step in the right direction this year.” Then, in future years, the legislature could reevaluate expanding the law, she said.
“I think we have to deal with what we have before us,” she said. “I do agree that the things that are not covered are those much larger-scale polluters; however, I believe it’s as important to look at the daily small emitters that are pervasive in our communities.”
Washington proposed a bill this year altering the way that the public is notified about new environmental permit applications. That bill, which did not advance, would have removed the MDE’s process of issuing a “tentative determination” about a project, instead requiring public notice that doesn’t take a stance, Washington said. The department has opposed the idea. But Washington said she’s considering proposing amendments to the environmental justice bill that would accomplish something similar.
The permitting bill also garnered concern from Sacoby Wilson, a professor in the University of Maryland School of Public Health who helped create Maryland’s environmental justice screening tool.
Many of the primary indicators in the screening tool are focused on air pollution, he said. So, not including many air pollution permits in the bill creates a “mismatch” in state law, he said.
The mere fact that key environmental justice communities like Curtis Bay and Brandywine, which is also impacted by industrial sites such as power plants, do not support the bill may be reason enough to oppose it, Wilson said.
“This is not an EJ bill because you did not engage front-line, fence-line communities in the development of the bill,” Wilson said. “That’s a big issue.”