That was a great read thank you! I didn't realize how invasive they are. I just thought they were a shitty human-planted tree to look pretty

This is why it’s so important to protest against poor environmental decisions! I’m glad that Mayor Scott rejected this. This needs to be handled better by the EPA not dumped on states.

The same Back River that had a random explosion a few weeks back? They’re collocated on that property? Which we should have total faith in?

I don’t think so. And clearly, neither does the bulk of the local community.

If you read up about the situation, you would've saw that Clean Harbors' Facility would've processed it all. They are on the Back River Water Treatment Facility's property, but they are independent of the Back River Water Facility and their equipment. This is exactly the kind of work they specialize in.

The community has every right to be highly incredulous of private industry’s ability to behave in an environmentally friendly manner.

The community has every right to be very skeptical of Back River’s ability to safely evaluate “treated” water coming from providers such as Clean Harbors, and then deal with that water properly.

Everyone has a right to seriously question EPA’s ability to carry out their original mission, especially in the wake of being turned into an ANTI-regulation agency during the Trump administration.

If Clean Harbors doesn’t want to have these types of reactions, then maybe they should be putting more focus on getting Baltimore to fix its issues with the particular facility they are partnered with.

Communities are told left and right “this is safe, don’t worry!” Who tells us this? Large corporations and Federal agencies that clearly do not give af.

The environment is going to shit. Who’s to blame? Major polluters, the corporations. They have earned NO trust. They ONLY push for less regulation.

Fuck ‘em! I’m glad the Mayor used his power to say no.

Let’s go, I dunno, a few MONTHS maybe, without a real issue occurring at the treatment plant? Then we can decide if Baltimore should be dumping very large volumes of other people’s waste into our system.

Someone said the water coming from Ohio is said to be “borderline drinkable.” What a ridiculous load. I’d like to see them volunteer to have their own family drink it, bathe in it.

But now our elected officials get to say they stopped the nasty toxic water that would've caused all of the river fish to turn into the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons.

Everyone got all worked up over what should've been no big deal. Fear and misinformation is really powerful in the media, sadly.

Now how about a conversation about rehabilitating our dilapidated sewer and water infrastructure, preferrably with Annapolis since Bmore city provides it to the county and I think northern AA too?

675 THOUSAND gallons in the very first round, to get handed off to a treatment facility that has earned zero trust from the community?

Yeah, no.

Get your house in order, don’t have random explosions in the past two weeks, then we’ll talk.

I have no faith that Back River is in a position to properly evaluate the “treated” waste water from a major environmental spill, before putting it back into the system. The trust has to be earned.

That sounds marvelous, I hope they do bring it back. Dylan's Oyster Cellar in Hampden used to have some really good raw oyster specials too..... but they have also yet to come back.

The wastewater

I just heard that though wastewater will not be coming here

They have a great crab special -- it used to be weekly, maybe they'll bring it back during the summer. It's something like $1-$3 per crab, depending on what size you get. Perfect for when you only need crabs for a couple people and don't need a lot.

Cool, but I never did hear one scientific reason why the plant that does a thing all the time, shouldn't do the thing it does just this one time, and will still do in the future.

Environmental chemist in the city here that is very familiar with this situation. This water was not any sort of waste from the accident. It was rainwater and stream water collected from areas around the cleanup site. All the water in these tanks has been described by individuals involved as “borderline drinkable.” We’re not talking about tanks of green glowing sludge here. Testing did find trace amounts of vinyl chloride still in the water, so obviously the EPA wants some additional treatment on it before it can be dumped anywhere. Clean Harbors Baltimore is one of few facilities in the country that could’ve taken this water and easily and routinely treated it. They are treating thousands of gallons of wastewater and discharging it into the sewer every day, and that discharge is constantly monitored for compliance by the plant’s internal lab with verification from a third-party lab’s analysis, and the city samples and monitors the discharge as well. This project would’ve created no additional strain on the Back River treatment plant. This could’ve been an easy opportunity for local representatives to praise a unique capability the city possesses to help the nation clean up from an environmental tragedy. But instead our representatives are spreading false information and making decisions based on fear of a situation they don’t know anything about and twisting the narrative themselves to make the city look worse, making it look like the EPA chose the Baltimore sewer to become a national toxic waste dump or something. It’s so disappointing to see all this play out like this.

Yea this is pretty much my thoughts on it too. Like isn't this what the plant does all the time anyway? The only difference here seem to be people freaking out over it because it's from the Ohio wreck.

awesome !! was looking into it and now i def wanna go !!

Only female ginkgo trees bear fruit and stink. If you find a stinky one that was planted, someone probably made a mistake. And they do stink! It’s like a combination of vomit & dogshit. I don’t know what the fruits are used for (food? medicine?) but I’ve seen some older Asian folks collecting them by the bagful in the fall, below the huge old ones in front of the Sun paper building. They are beautiful trees.

I mean, it's kind of nice for a change to see the workers getting the money. Usually the pension system shortages stem from politically connected fund managers mismanaging the funds, taking crazy commissions, funding BS shit that doesn't make money, etc.

5 days ago the city posted the following job: "Payroll Manager, Operations Manager I"

Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not, but from the screw up it definitely seems to be needed.

Edit: I can't spell lol

https://news.clemson.edu/invasive-bradford-pear-3-other-species-to-be-banned-for-sale-in-sc/ Ohio too. Bradfords are a scourge.

Yeah, it's more like we just lost a lot of business rather than protected anything. This was an irrational move

Life... uh... finds a way.

Look at where the crime is happening and what the income levels are in those areas..it really is that simple.

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I was thinking of the Fairfield suites which is President/Pratt across from Reginald F Lewis African-American heritage museum.

The Homewood suites is called the Homewood suites inner harbor tho: https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/balhwhw-homewood-suites-baltimore/