A medical waste incineration company has agreed to pay one of the largest fines in an environmental criminal case in Maryland’s history after state investigators found that its South Baltimore facility was inadequately burning contaminated refuse from hospitals and other medical facilities, state officials said Tuesday.
In a guilty plea signed this August, Curtis Bay Energy agreed to pay the state a $1 million penalty, in addition to $750,000 for environmental projects for the surrounding community, to be distributed to local organizations by the Chesapeake Bay Trust.
The company, which came under new ownership in 2021 — following Maryland’s investigation — owns medical waste incinerators along the East Coast. At issue was its facility in Hawkins Point neighborhood, an industrial area that includes a city landfill, located across Curtis Creek from the residential neighborhoods of Curtis Bay.
It pleaded guilty to 40 counts in violation of its refuse disposal permit, including failing to treat special medical waste, failing to provide adequate personnel and equipment, failing to prevent leakage and failing to maintain adequate records.
The Maryland Attorney General’s office was set to host a news conference Tuesday afternoon about the investigation.
In a statement, Curtis Bay Energy said it has fully cooperated with the state investigation into “past violations committed by employees under prior ownership and management.”
“Since acquiring the company, new ownership and facility management have significantly increased investments in plant equipment, personnel, process improvements and training,” according to the statement. “Curtis Bay Energy remains committed to increasing its investment for preventative maintenance and workforce training and to honor its place in the community and region.”
After receiving a tip about the facility in November 2019, the Environmental Crimes Unit of the attorney general’s office conducted surveillance at the facility on several occasions, revealing a host of environmental violations, which they say occurred with the knowledge of plant management.
Under environmental laws, the plant is supposed to incinerate medical waste down to a fine ash in order to prevent any possible spread of disease. But, according to the company’s plea agreement, investigators uncovered a troubling pattern: The incinerator was consistently sending piles of ash to a Virginia landfill laden with un-burned medical waste, such as surgical gloves, bedding, medical equipment, and bright red medical waste bags.
On one occasion, a transport truck was carrying the waste to the landfill when it caught fire, and burned through a metal carrying container, according to the plea, shared with the Baltimore Sun by the attorney general’s office.
On two occasions, investigators from the attorney general’s office tailed trucks coming from the incinerator, and documented that the trucks “leaked fluid” onto the road for the duration of the roughly two-hour, 110-mile journey to the landfill, and “covered the agents’ cars and windshields with an unknown substance,” according to the plea.
The state’s investigation uncovered that the volume of waste being treated at the plant ballooned from 24,192 tons in 2019 to 30,062 tons in 2019, even as the plant spent less on labor. Meanwhile, the plant manager was in daily communication with the company’s corporate leaders about “the amount of waste processed each day and the profit recognized per pound.”
After learning about the state’s investigation in January 2020, the company’s counsel contacted the attorney general’s office and “fully cooperated” with investigators.
Since March 2020, the facility has “no known, unaddressed significant violations” relating to its disposal of medical waste, according to the plea documents. New personnel are “responsible for the company and Facility operations,” and the company has continued to cooperate with the state, according to the plea.
The plant manager, Kenneth T. Jackson, also pleaded guilty to several violations following the state’s investigation, and agreed to pay a $30,000 fine to the state. Under the plea, a possible two-year prison sentence was suspended, and Jackson will face three years of supervised probation.
The original complaint received by the attorney general’s office stated that a sump pump had been placed on the outside of a building to address a large leak coming from the building, which housed steam condenser units. The complainant said the leak had been ongoing for months, dating back to July 2019.
Investigators from the attorney general’s office visited the property, and discovered the illegal pump system. From the pump, a hose transported the leaking liquid through a wooded area and beyond a chain-link fence, where it was dumped onto the ground of an adjacent property, owned by the state of Maryland, according to the plea documents for Jackson.
The water was tested, and was “primarily free of contaminants,” according to the plea documents. But discharging it directly onto the ground, next to a storm drain, was illegal without a permit from the state.
The tipster had told the attorney general’s office that, during a surprise inspection by the Maryland Department of the Environment in November 2019, employees disconnected the hose and hid it in the forest so it wouldn’t be spotted, while the inspectors were “intentionally delayed” at the facility’s front office, according to the plea documents for Jackson.
A few months later, investigators from the attorney general’s office stood along the fence and watched as MDE made another surprise inspection. They watched employees disconnect the hose system and hide it in the woods. When confronted, Jackson, as well as another plant manager, denied knowing about it.
But when the MDE inspector explained that the state knew the system had been illegally discharging wastewater for months, Jackson admitted to it and agreed to stop the discharges.
From there, the attorney general’s office continued its surveillance, watching as truckloads of partially burned waste made their way from the facility to the landfill. Aerial photographs determined that the incinerator’s operations actually extended beyond its four-acre tract in South Baltimore to a total of six acres, including on parcels owned by the City of Baltimore. On those extra acres, the company was storing trucks, as well as containers of medical waste, without authorization from state regulators, according to the plea documents.
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