Industrially poisoned South Baltimore residents march on state capitol, demand help from Gov. Moore

On Dec. 7, working-class residents of Curtis Bay and other South Baltimore neighborhoods marched through the streets of Annapolis and delivered a giant stocking full of coal to the Governor’s mansion. They are demanding Gov. Wes Moore intervene in a generations-long struggle to stop rail giant CSX transportation from polluting their bodies, homes, and communities with toxic coal dust.

CSX is not the only polluter in South Baltimore: industrial areas near Curtis Bay house oil tanks, a wastewater treatment plant, chemical plants, landfills, the country’s largest medical waste incinerator, and more. But a recent air quality study confirmed what residents have been complaining about for generations: Coal dust from the CSX Transportation coal export terminal is present all over Curtis Bay. CSX has denied culpability and called the study “materially flawed.” Residents say they’re fed up with the company refusing to take responsibility for the coal dust, and with the city government for ignoring their cries for help for years. So they are demanding that Gov. Moore and the Maryland Department of the Environment deny CSX’s operational permit for the coal terminal, a permit that the MDE has been reviewing for renewal.

Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Norma Martinez
Post-Production: Kate Lindsay, David Hebden

Transcript

Annapolis March: “What do we want? Deny the permit!  When do we want it? Now! And if we don’t get it? Shut it down! If we don’t get it?  Shut it down! If we don’t get it… Shut it down…”

Maximillian Alvarez: Working-class residents of Curtis Bay and other South Baltimore neighborhoods marched through the streets of Annapolis in early December, and delivered a giant stocking full of coal to the Governor’s mansion. They are demanding Governor Wes Moore intervene in a generations-long struggle to stop rail giant CSX transportation from polluting their bodies, homes, and communities with toxic coal dust.

Nicole Fabricant: Governor Moore will not come to see the tragedy of Curtis Bay, so we have brought the community to Governor Moore.

David Jones: It’s a little different here in Annapolis. I can actually take a deep breath and don’t feel like I’m gonna throw up or choke. So that’s a good thing. So if you could please make the air like it is here in Annapolis in my community, or even a little bit better, I think myself and others would really appreciate that.

Phil Ateto: Governor Moore is treating Curtis Bay like a sacrifice zone, which is the opposite of his campaign slogan and pledge to ‘leave no one behind.’ Governor Moore, you are leaving Curtis Bay behind… Governor Moore, meet with the Curtis Bay community, reject the coal pier permit, and keep your commitment to communities across Maryland. 

Maximillian Alvarez: CSX is not the only polluter in South Baltimore, but it runs uncovered coal trains through the same places people live in, and it operates a massive coal terminal in their backyard. Between the Curtis Bay Coal Pier and the CONSOL Energy Baltimore Marine terminal, served by both CSX and Norfolk Southern railroad, the Port of Baltimore is the second largest coal export port in the United States. Dozens of South Baltimore residents, community association members, and allies from climate justice movements across Maryland brought a message to Governor Moore from their communities: deny CSX’s operational permit for the coal terminal, a permit that the Maryland Department of the Environment has been reviewing for renewal.

Shashawnda Campbell: You wouldn’t dream that you’d have to come somewhere to say, ‘Please stop poisoning me,’ right?… And it’s even worse that the community that’s been dealing with this burden for decades, decades upon decades—spills, leaks, explosions—time after time after time have to also be the ones to come here to say, ‘We need help.’

Dave Jones: So this will never come out of my lungs, ever. This is probably what’s gonna cause my death. I’ve never been in a coal mine in my life, and I guarantee you when they cut me open, I’ll look like the coal miner that’s been there his whole life.

Shashawnda Campbell: When we think about when somebody [is] doing something violent—we see it and we’re like, ‘We gotta stop that!.’ This IS violence. This is violence against our community.

Dave Jones: This is murder. This is murder on a grand scale. The amount of cancer rates in my community are disgusting! And I, for one, am done. So I am pleading to our governor to please do something about this, sir. Please do your job!

Maximillian Alvarez: A recent air quality study confirmed what residents have been complaining about for generations: coal dust from the CSX transportation coal export terminal is present all over Curtis Bay. Coal dust contains heavy metals that can be lethal, including selenium, chromium, arsenic, mercury, and lead. 

Matthew Aubourg: We’re finding science that is supporting what community and what residents have been saying for decades… We shouldn’t need to be bringing this evidence to the table in the first place. What residents are experiencing, what people are seeing every day—that should be enough to make the change that’s needed in the community.

Maximillian Alvarez: The year-long study was released by the Community of Curtis Bay Association, South Baltimore Community Land Trust, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland and the Maryland Department of the Environment. Yet CSX still claims the study was flawed and denies the results, and CSX also says it is abiding by existing regulations and meeting the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Residents say CSX is full of it, that the study is not flawed, and that their bodies bear the proof of the deadly pollution the company denies. 

Shashawnda Campbell: We are here fighting for the community, to say, ‘It’s not OK to have this coal terminal right next to communities and not doing anything to stop it.’ And so we need Governor Moore to come out and actually stand with the people and hold this facility accountable for the harms that it has caused.

Maximillian Alvarez: CSX reported over $14 billion in total revenue last year, and a net profit of ​​$3.72 billion.

Dave Jones: I don’t understand how you can justify profits over someone dying 20 years earlier than they’re expected to be, or getting cancer and having a horrible rest of their existence for the time they have left…

The first thing you can do is declare a state of emergency for environmental injustice, and then we can go from there. What that looks like down the road, I don’t know. But I know the only way that we’re really gonna change this is if … we don’t get rid of these industries, is to change the status quo of what they get fined for being bad actors.

Shashawnda Campbell: So we are calling for our governor—our governor [who] says so much about reducing greenhouse gasses and this and that—to actually stand on your words and do it. And you can do it single handedly by holding this coal terminal accountable by denying their permit so that coal terminal is not functional.

Maximillian Alvarez: At a community meeting in November, in which Maryland Department of the Environment officials and a CSX representative were present, residents of Curtis Bay and other South Baltimore neighborhoods like Cherry Hill, Westport, Mt. Winans, Lakeland, and Brooklyn, shared fiery testimonies. They unanimously expressed anger and frustration towards CSX, and many urged the MDE to reject the operating permit for the CSX Transportation Coal Export Terminal. The agency says it’s amending the existing permit to impose stricter requirements on the railroad giant’s operations, and that it can enforce these restrictions with fines and even litigation, but does not have the authority to shut down CSX’s operations.

Halyna Mudryj: I invite the people who work for CSX, those in charge: Please, come and live in our community.

Jeffrey Barnes: MDE is ignoring us, and you, for years. There’s no question that the coal dust is poisoning our communities, causing cancers. That’s not a question. And yet we come here every year, and what do we say? ‘Please, you’ve got to stop this poisoning of our community.’ This is something that the state should do.

Melanie Thomas: This is not just a Curtis Bay issue. Every community where that coal train passes through, you are being impacted too. Do y’all hear me? Every community that a train passes through carrying coal, you are being impacted too. Because it’s not just an isolated incident or an isolated area that we are talking about. We are talking about lives, we are talking about communities, miles and miles of people—people living and breathing like you and I—that are being affected each and every day by these fine particulate matters, these particles that we are breathing in day after day.

Maximillian Alvarez: Standing here in Curtis Bay, South Baltimore, where a seemingly endless CSX locomotive is slowly pulling car after car after car of uncovered coal containers.

Angie Shaneyfelt: So that’s the coal pile that we’ve been fighting for years and years and years. And literally right here, this white siding, is my house—about a football field, football field and a half, away from my house.

Maximillian Alvarez: Angie Shaneyfelt lives just up the street from the CSX coal terminal. She and her family have been dealing with the realities of living in a “sacrifice zone” for years, like not opening their windows for the past 16 years, but it was after an explosion at the coal pier in December of 2021 that she got actively involved in the fight to hold CSX accountable for its toxic pollution. Again, CSX is not the only polluter in South Baltimore: Industrial areas near Curtis Bay house oil tanks, a wastewater treatment plant, chemical plants, landfills, the country’s largest medical waste incinerator, and more. But Angie says that everyone knows what the constant black dust in the community is, the harms it causes, and where it’s coming from. 

Angie Shaneyfelt: So this is my windowsill, covered porch, totally black fingers now. Undisturbed. And it’s even up, it’s all the way up in here.” [shows finger and looks at the camera] … And this is 16 years now, since 2009, that we have not opened our windows fully to breathe fresh air, because the fresh air is not fresh. It’s coal dust, dirty.

We are here in Curtis Bay community—a community of people, different kinds of people, all different walks of life. Most of the people around are renters. And we’re not that far away from the coal pile right there. I’ve lived here 16 years. And we don’t… everybody’s in, inside. Even on a nice day—inside. Because we don’t like this dust and breathing it in. Nobody should be breathing in this dust.

Right here, right next to the coal, like less than 1,000 feet away is where the community starts. When we had the explosion, people’s windows were shattered out of their house, out of the frames. So crazy. And [we’ve] not gotten anything, really, since then. The only thing we get is doubt: ‘No, it’s not dust, it’s not coal dust, it’s something else.’ But we know what it is. Generations have fought this, and we’re gonna keep fighting it.

Maximillian Alvarez: For The Real News Network, this is Maximillian Alvarez reporting from South Baltimore.

Related