Trenton and Rose Mitchell, both in their 80s, boil pots of bottled water to take bathes.
Gayle Queen had a $700,000 offer to buy her Gambrills house dissolve when the buyer found out her well water was contaminated by nearby coal fly ash dumping.
Now a high-profile Baltimore City law firm has filed a class-action against Constellation Energy on behalf of the Gambrills residents who say the contamination has hindered their lives and might have affected their health.
“People here are living every day uncertain that the water they drink, the water they bathe in, is safe, is hazardous or potentially fatal,” Wayne Curry, former Prince George?s County executive and partner with The Murphy Firm, said Thursday during a news conference at Queen?s house.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Baltimore City Circuit Court, and has only one named person ? Queen ? but is open to the hundreds of other people living around the two mines where fly ash was dumped off Waugh Chapel Road.
Queen said her husband died of renal failure, and many of her family members and friends who live next to her on Queen Mitchell Road have died of cancer.
The Murphy Firm said it plans to determine if these deaths are related to eight years of water contamination. The state learned of potential contamination as early as 1999, but residents were notified that the problem intensified in October 2006.
“It?s not about the money, but about our health,” Queen said. No monetary amount has been stated.
Queen and the Mitchell family get cases of bottled water from Constellation Energy per a Maryland Department of the Environment order to provide alternative water for affected families.
“We heat up bottled water, because we don?t know how safe our regular water is,” said Rose Mitchell, who has well water.
Constellation Energy spokesman Kevin Thornton said Thursday that the company does not comment on litigation.
The owner of the two mines, BBSS Inc. and MDE, are not listed as defendants on the lawsuit, but Hassan Murphy of The Murphy Firm said to “stay tuned.”
STORY SO FAR
Constellation Energy began dumping coal fly ash from its coal power plants in 1995 at two former sand and gravel mines in Gambrills.
Anne Arundel officials discovered in 2006 that more than 20 wells had high levels of heavy metals.
Dumping has stopped, but a large plume of contaminated groundwater exists.
The state fined Constellation Energy and mine operator BBSS Inc. $1 million in October.
