#curtis bay

By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews As Maryland’s Republican gubernatorial primary continues to take shape, Saturday offered a revealing split-screen moment among the leading candidates. While none of the Democratic contenders made waves in the Republican contest, within the GOP field itself, the contrast in tone and priorities was unmistakable. Dan Cox: Foreign Policy and Fire Former Delegate…

BALTIMORE, MD – The guilty plea of Nathan Houck, a 32-year-old Curtis Bay father, in the fentanyl overdose death of his 23-month-old son lays bare the systemic failures of Maryland’s child welfare apparatus—a bureaucracy faltering under decades of one-party governance. This tragedy, unfolding amid missing foster children and audit-documented neglect, demands a hard look at root causes and bold…

"A new study from Johns Hopkins confirms what residents of Curtis Bay have reported for decades: Measurable amounts of coal dust coat nearly every surface of their community.

The study’s main goal was to determine if coal was present in the dark dust that coats the community, but the results may spur more studies to measure the repercussions.

Heaney said this is the first systematic effort by researchers to study the particulate matter in Curtis Bay and will help residents in their fight against the ongoing permit renewal for the coal plant."

Adverse effects under respiratory health, cardiovascular health, neurocognitive, reproductive health. Particulate matter is well recognized and well understood to cause adverse health outcomes,” Johns Hopkins Environmental Health and Engineering Professor Chris Heaney said.

In 2010, when Destiny Watford was 14 years old, New York-based energy firm Energy Answers International got a permit from the state of Maryland to build a massive trash incinerator in Curtis Bay, the South Baltimore neighborhood where Watford and her family lived.

The incinerator would have spewed a boatload of toxic pollutants — including mercury, lead and nitrogen dioxide — that have causal links to lung damage and other respiratory problems.

Curtis Bay already ranked among the 10 worst zip codes in the nation for toxic air pollutants emitted from stationary facilities between 2005 and 2009.

Enter Watford and a dedicated group of young activists: In partnership with local advocates, at age 16 Watford and fellow students at nearby Benjamin Franklin High School launched a grassroots campaign to stop the incinerator from being constructed. 

Using a combination of public art, theater and educational events, they convinced 22 local governments, school systems and nonprofit institutions to back out of their agreements with Energy Answers, from whom the groups had committed to buy energy generated by the yet-to-be-constructed plant.

"Fighting the incinerator was an act of survival," Watford said. "I live in Curtis Bay, my family, my nephews, my brothers and sisters all live in Curtis Bay. It's an act of survival because we already have some of worst air pollution in Maryland and the nation."