Every day their case is stalled in the winding legal system, Dundalk activists say more and more contaminated sediment at the bottom of Baltimore City’s harbor is being disturbed.
The Baltimore County residents ? who asked a circuit court judge last month to halt dredging near the Sparrows Point peninsula ? said that by the time the court rules on their case, the dredging will be over with potentially catastrophic results.
Most recently, a judge yesterday postponed a hearing until next week.
“Isn¹t this going to be a moot point after all?” said Sharon Beazley, head of the LNG Opposition Team, a Dundalk-based group organized to derail a proposed liquid natural gas plant at the peninsula and protect the local environment.
“But even if we get into court two months from now, we will put our argument on the record.”
In May 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave shipyard owner Vincent Barletta permission to dredge as much as 600,000 cubic yards of material to accommodate larger vessels at a ship repair facility on the peninsula.
Dredging reportedly began Dec. 8 and must be complete by Jan. 31, when the state’s contract with Barletta to use nearby Hart Miller Island for disposal expires.
Calling the material a “toxic parfait,” members of the Greater Dundalk Alliance asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the
dredging Dec. 19. Judge Dana Levitz granted the order but gave the association 24 hours to post a $750,000 bond for collateral.
Unable to produce the money, Levitz revoked the order and dredging resumed. Meanwhile, attorneys for Barletta filed a motion to dismiss the injunction, delaying the proceedings for two weeks. A tentative hearing on the motion Friday was not scheduled with a county judge, a community attorney Alan Silverberg.
“The administrative judge for some reason didn¹t know what the case was about and said it didn¹t seem like an emergency,” said Silverberg, who sent the judge a letter earlier this week emphatically requesting a hearing as soon as possible. The closest date available is Jan. 12, he said.
A call to Heather Sites, the shipyard’s environmental engineer, was not returned by press time.
