At a press conference on April 9, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown announced a $2.2 million settlement after the state said a paint project on a TV tower in Baltimore exposed lead to the area below. (Courtesy of the Maryland Attorney General’s Office)
A $2.2 million settlement has been awarded to a paint removal contractor and the company that hired him after a 1,000-foot-tall broadcast tower in Baltimore rained lead paint debris onto homes, parks and child care facilities.
The agreement stems from a civil lawsuit filed by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office, which alleges that Television Tower Inc. (TTI) knew the tower contained lead-based paint before the repainting project began.
Officials said that from May 28, 2022 to June 21, 2022, Skyline Tower Painting conducted scraping and power cleaning along the outside of the tower. No controls were in place to contain the paint debris, which caused it to fall 800 meters away into the surrounding area.
TTI is owned by three Baltimore-area television stations: WBAL, WJZ, and WMAR.
The tower is located in an area informally known as TV Hill and is surrounded by a community with an environmental justice score of 88 out of 100. This score indicates a high existing pollution load and population vulnerability, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment’s Environmental Justice Mapping Tool.
Exposure to lead can have negative effects on the brain, nervous system, and development of young children. They can also have harmful effects on wildlife, which increase as you move up the food chain.
Two paint chip samples taken from the fallout were tested and found lead levels of 19.6 milligrams per liter and 6.2 milligrams per liter, both above the hazardous materials safety standard of 5 milligrams per liter.
“We understand the impact this has had on the community, and it’s important to say unequivocally that this should not have happened,” said MDE Secretary Serena McIlwain. “This case highlights why strong environmental protections and careful handling of hazardous materials such as lead are so important to protect public health.”
In a separate criminal case, Skyline Tower and its president, Christopher Mecklum of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, each pleaded guilty in December to violations related to the incident and were each fined $50,000.
