The Environmental Protection Agency plans to clean up the Bear Creek Superfund site in Eastern Baltimore County over the next three years.
But residents who live nearby as well as environmentalists are concerned the cleanup project might not work and could do damage.
For decades, dangerous chemicals, including cancer-causing PCBs, were dumped into Bear Creek from Bethlehem Steel, which for a time was the largest steel producer in the world.
Mitch Cron, a project manager for the EPA, said PCBs remain in the sediment of Bear Creek. He said a goal of the cleanup is to keep PCBs away from fish and crabs.
“And by doing that, we want to protect birds, mammals and of course human beings as well, us,” Cron told residents at a public hearing in Dundalk Tuesday. “That’s the total food chain. We’re seeking to prevent PCBs from making its way through the food chain.”
Turner Station, an historically African American community, is on Bear Creek. Gloria Nelson, the President of the Turner Station Conservation Teams, said it’s time for the cleanup.
Read more (and listen) at WYPR.
