Coal Kills Baltimore

10/05/2026

Oakland may not be Chicago, but it is a very windy city, and, yet, the planned coal terminal will have uncovered piles. Wanna tell them how that's gonna work out, Curtis Bay? At least California's governor is stepping in to force a comprehensive environmental review on a project that will sacrifice the lives of a community to build this planet-killing monstrosity. We'd like to see Maryland's governor find a way to take it to CSX in the same way, rather than accepting a $5 million check and putting the company atop the celebration next year of the bicentennial of American railroading.
By the way, we love railroading. We believe railroading is an excellent way to move freight and people. It's a good business with good jobs. We love its romance. We know much of America was built on railroading. We love the B&O Railroad Museum. What we don't like is coal. Because it's deadly at literally every point of its life cycle.
It should never - at this late date - be sold as a necessary energy source. It's a lie. Coal now is simply greed, and the fight for human rights to clean air and water (and justice) violated by this filthy industry is met with a roadblock at every turn.
Let's not leave out that more than 85% of the people living in West Oakland, in the direct path of the coal trains, are Black and low-income residents. It is blatant environmental racism, a classic case (South Baltimore knows too well) of putting the most toxic industries in the poorest communities.
We stand in solidarity with No Coal In Oakland and all the people there who are about to suffer health nightmares they can't afford to escape.
By the way, the Trump administration handed this project $75 million in American tax dollars toward this tragic project. Just something for voters to keep in mind with the midterm elections coming.
- Coal Kills Baltimore.

The developer must now contend with environmental review red tape, as concerns grow over coal dust and health risks.

10/01/2026

Massive win for the South Baltimore community and Attorney General Anthony Brown, who held this toxic facility's feet to the fire. Well done to everyone who fought hard to see this conclusion.

A state investigation uncovered rampant environmental violations at the South Baltimore incinerator.

10/01/2026

Tonight! Clean air and water is a human right!
TELL MARYLAND IT'S TIME TO MOVE ON FROM THE INCINERATOR

How: The Maryland Department of the Environment permit renewal hearing for the Wheelabrator (BRESCO) incinerator in downtown Baltimore.

Date & Time: Oct. 1, at 6 p.m.
Location: Curtis Bay Recreation Center
1630 Filbert Street, Baltimore.

If you cannot attend in person, there is a link below to sign up to attend via Google Meet.

This is for the Air Quality Title V operating permit and the Water Discharge (NPDES) permit.

To comment without attending:
• For Air Quality (Title V Operating Permit Renewal): Email Shannon Heafey at [email protected]. You can review the draft documents on the MDE Air Management Permits Page.
• For Water Discharge (NPDES Permit Renewal): Email Michael Richardson at [email protected]. You can review the draft water permit details through the MDE Water Management Notice PDF.

Public Hearing to accept comment on the draft federal air quality Title V - Part 70 Operating Permit Renewal and state/federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Discharge Permit Renewal.

09/23/2026

Democrats, Republicans. When it comes to trash in Maryland, it doesn't seem to matter, does it?
More and more, it seems less and less likely the state will even come close to achieving its Climate Pollution Reduction Plan goals.
Also, how long are the residents of South Baltimore supposed to be smothered in toxins?
See in the thread the Maryland Department of the Environment hearing you need to attend on Oct. 5 to say "no" to a new incinerator permit.
It's time for officials to stop saying there is no alternative waste stream. It's time for officials to publicly start working on one.
The projects in development now are being done piecemeal, in silos, rather than in a unified effort, and they simply are not enough.
Plus, there is little pressure to scale up when incinerator deals like this one in Baltimore County are stretching out to 2036.
The state needs a new, robust regional waste authority - that doesn't allow every city and county to make its own decisions - with a unified focus on large-scale industrial composting hubs and advanced material recovery facilities.
Senator Bill Ferguson needs to get the ball rolling.
Since it would remove decision-making authority from city and county leadership, those entities need to be at the table developing the plan with every reason to buy in.
Right now, the state is slowly working to phase out its existing waste authority and distribute its work to other agencies. In 2025, the state legislature voted to strip the incinerator from the Renewable Portfolio Standard after years of environmentalist pressure. That cut off cynical clean energy subsidies the incinerator operator had been receiving.
Fine, but if the goal is to shut down the incinerator - and it must be - why is there no major, unified push for a comprehensive, statewide, carbon-neutral trash infrastructure?
The incinerator pumps 653,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year. It emits 388 pounds of lead, which causes neurological problems, particularly in children, and causes cardiovascular issues. It emits up to 87 pounds of mercury a year. On gram can contaminate a 20-acre lake. Nitrogen oxide, breathable particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrochloric acid, formaldehyde, benzene, and 150,000 tons of toxic ash annually, which is trucked into South Baltimore and deposited at the Quarantine Road Landfill.
The ash blows directly into the community of Curtis Bay, which already has toxic coal dust blowing in off the massive coal piles at the CSX coal export piers.
Remind us again, Maryland, what's causing all the foot dragging?

The Baltimore County Council on Tuesday narrowly approved an agreement to continue sending massive quantities of garbage to a city incinerator for years, possibly another decade.

09/17/2026

So many people work every single day to protect and repair the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and here comes our wrecking ball of a president and his administration to do massive violence to the region.

As if anyone around these parts needs a lesson: The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, the third largest in the world. An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of water where freshwater from rivers and streams mixes with the salt water from the ocean. That kind of water is called brackish.

Estuaries are among the most important incubators of life on the planet, both plant and animal. The Chesapeake Bay is a critical breeding, feeding, and spawning body of water for many, many commercial and recreational fish and shellfish. There are 348 known species of finfish in the bay and 173 species of shellfish.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed covers 64,000 square miles.

If you're one of those people who resents environmental protections and regulations, the Chesapeake is where you get your yummy hard crabs, oysters, and rockfish.

If you're one of those people who doesn't think Democratic Maryland is welcoming to business, the Chesapeake supports tens of thousands of jobs, producing 500 million pounds of seafood each year. The seafood industry around the bay alone creates 20,000 jobs. Total economic impact of all Chesapeake Bay business each year? More than $100 billion, with $14 million of that amount in tourism dollars.

Pollutants, particularly from farming, stormwater runoff, wastewater treatment plants, and airborne particles - along with overfishing and climate change - heavily degrade the bay. It's a never-ending war to balance competing interests, capitalism vs. preservation of a precious resource. We don't even like using the term "resource" because it implies the bay is something exclusively for society to mine for self-interest. It's not, it's a precious habitat that must be shared with all living things that reside there, from lowly sea grass to majestic ospreys.

Lately, Trump's Environmental Protection Agency has been zeroing in on destroying wetlands protections throughout the country. It also is removing regulations on toxic and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Now, here, the EPA is withdrawing from its role in regulating the bay's water quality through policies and enforcement mechanisms under the Clean Water Act.

We at Coal Kills Baltimore have been engaged for nearly six years in an effort to rid Curtis Bay and Curtis Creek of the deeply harmful CSX coal export piers. The waters around the piers connect with the Patapsco River, which feeds the bay. Our study released earlier this year, conducted with our partners at Johns Hopkins and UMBC, found very little life in the water and sediment around the piers. If you can even find fish or crabs to catch in Curtis Bay waters, you are taking a major health risk if you eat them. What happens in Curtis Bay and other overly industrial toxic zones has a powerful impact on the well being of the bay at large. Estuaries are interconnected networks of water. What begins in Curtis Bay travels out into the Patapsco and flows straight into the beating heart of the ecosystem.

CKB is working toward further scientific study to better understand the impact of the illegal coal we found in our sampling of the benthic community - the plants, animals, and bacteria that live on, in, or near the bottom of Curtis Bay.

The harms caused by airborne coal dust in the neighborhoods of Curtis Bay and Brooklyn are well documented by the residents, the South Baltimore Community Land Trust, many other concerned environmental groups, and their scientific partners. Adjacent the outstanding work being done by groups like Blue Water Baltimore and Patapsco Heritage Greenway, we're looking at the waters exclusively for coal, and our first study was paid for by one of, if not the last federal environmental justice grant to go out into Baltimore.

We are now looking for funding for our next round of science.

The Environmental Protection Agency, turning its order of business from protection to destruction, has terminated $180 billion in federal grants for Green & Healthy Homes. It canceled $3 billion nationwide in Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants. It froze a $7 billion grant to the Maryland-based Climate United Fund, citing its favorite bogus default mantra: waste, fraud and abuse.

There is more, but you get the idea.

All this money, much of it already in the hands of the nonprofits administering restoration programs, wound up in the vaults of Citibank, frozen by order of the EPA, FBI and Treasury Department.

Who gets to determine the future of our precious Chesapeake Bay when the Trump administration is hellbent on destroying the entire natural world?

Maryland Attorney General Maryland Dept. Of The Environment Mayor Brandon M. Scott Johns Hopkins University Environmental Integrity Project U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

President Trump on Wednesday repealed a policy that has guided federal participation in Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts for nearly two decades.

09/14/2026

You quietly do the work of environmental justice for years and years and then wake up one morning to this.

Generation of electricity is the second largest source of carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases in the United States.

08/25/2026

Huge props to our friends at F Minus for exposing lobbyists playing both sides of the fence and collecting big in the climate change wars. F Minus is doing absolutely critical work and the governments hiring lobbyists in climate or climate adjacent battles simply must do their due diligence. If you are a school system hiring new teachers, you do background checks to make sure they aren't predators, right? Same should apply here. You don't hire lobbyists that work for Exxon-Mobil to represent you on environmental-related issues. If you do, you are part of the problem.
A million thanks to James Browning for his work. We at CKB are friends aligned with F Minus. Learn more about them in the link in the thread.

Analysis of federal lobbying disclosures shows local governments working with firms also linked to fossil fuel giants

08/14/2026

Meanwhile, in Oakland . . .
(we stand with No Coal In Oakland)

By Post Staff U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) joined California senators and other members of the California delegation to Congress to call on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the Trump administration’s use of the Defense Production Act and other taxpayer funds to suppo...

08/04/2026

The insanity of the Trump administration, happy destroyer of the world.

The Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office's investments, partnerships, and on-the-ground engagements represent the work underway to strengthen America's coal industry and position it for the future.

07/21/2026

The Trump administration is scouring every nook and cranny to find clean energy funds, incentives and rules it can overrule or destroy,
In Maryland, under pressure from the administration, Gov. Moore is forced to play along. The governor transferred $292 million from the Strategic Energy Investment Fund (SEIF) to the state's general fund. Additional efforts from Moore's administration have called for redirecting well over $700 million from the fund to plug budget holes. Moore does this to keep costs down for residents, and Republicans look at him and gleefully say, "See? Told you so."
Environmentalists in the state, who take a longer-term view, see what's happening: a governor who stepped out and said he would make his state the national leader in clean energy wavering under economic pressure, most of it caused by withering assaults on the state by the Trump administration. Republicans and easily swayed others can be found all over the internet mercilessly pounding Moore on costs, when they're not putting him on the throne as king of illegal immigrants. But let's be clear, even though nobody likes the pain of certain types of clarity: Sacrificing the environment in the short term to keep costs down isn't a sustainable strategy for a viable future.
Moore says he's still committed to the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, which will require all new vehicles sold in Maryland to be zero-emission by 2035. By law, Maryland's Climate Solutions Now Act mandates a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2006 levels by 2031 and net-zero emissions by 2045. We're not confident Maryland is going to pull net zero off, let alone the 2031 mandate.
The pain of change literally hands a campaign platform to Republicans, and few Democrats - Maryland and nationally - have the stones to commit to tackling the myriad environmental crises unfolding, locally and globally. We would be over the moon thrilled if Governor Moore proved our cynicism unfounded and delivered instead of going before the people with an explanation for why we failed.
This is where we signal and drive off the highway for a look around in the town of Democratic Socialists. They identify the problem clearly - capitalism - and aim to implement eco-socialist programs. We support them, but believe the mainstream Democratic efforts - the Inflation Reduction Act, a Green New Deal - had a far better chance to gain traction and instigate a massive transition to a clean energy economy. The DSA strongly and wrongly criticized mainstream Democrats for the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act, a vast package that included the furthest reaching climate effort in the history of the world, because it was grounded in capitalism and didn't go far enough. But the Trump administration never gave the IRA's environmental components - electric vehicles and charging stations, grants, wind and solar, building efficiency, etc. - even a chance to work, and now has moved past killing it to actively and aggressively finding ways to destroy the natural world, including the giveaway of federal lands by the Bureau of Land Management, to exponentially expanded drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, to eviscerating the Endangered Species Act. This list could go on and on.
Still, we think the DSA is the only political party showing the courage to face the reality of the climate crises. Their solutions, based in socialist reforms for things like public ownership of utilities and worker guarantees for a just transition are so revolutionary - of course labeled radical - that they are easy targets for political attack, but if humanity can't see itself out of paradigms that worked for a while and now have shown themselves to be corrosive failures, we're all in trouble. And we are all in trouble.
The Green New Deal (Trump: "Green New Scam") didn't explicitly target the overthrowing of the capitalist order and neither did the IRA. The IRA amazingly passed with bipartisan support, but the Trump administration gutted it (along with the Environmental Protection Agency and the rest of the entire federal government). Any climate efforts right now are going to have to be enacted on state and local levels, and the Trump administration knows this.
So, you can see how they sabotage this and other lefty priorities by looking at what they have done in Maryland:
Federal government employment and agencies have been lifeblood to the Maryland economy, and Trump's people went right at it with a gleaming blade. According to Brookings, the Trump administration killed 29,200 federal government jobs in the state between January 2025 and April 2026. That's 18% of the entire Maryland work force! That then ripples out and disrupts the work of more than 3,000 federal private contractors.
Brookings: "Prior to 2025, the federal government spent about $150 billion in Maryland on wage and retirement income, contracts for work performed in Maryland, grants to local governments and nonprofits, and direct payments to residents and businesses. To put this amount in perspective, Maryland’s GDP [gross domestic product - the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced within the state's borders during a specific period] during the analysis time frame was just over $500 billion, making the $150 billion in federal spending about 30% of the state’s GDP."
These devastating job cuts - not even considering the personal suffering of families - led to a billion-dollar loss of income tax revenue. Now, take the cuts and pile them onto the expenditures for priority programs. Start with the requirements of the massive costs for the educational Blueprint for Maryland's Future, which costs the state government billions of dollars each year; then add rising health care costs, inflation, tariff impacts on state work projects, etc., and Maryland is in trouble, and when the search begins for money, the Democrats head for funding pledged to clean energy, as if that's optional.
Republicans love it. Maryland's environmental goals, in the short term, drive up energy costs, so it's easy to attack Democrats. Moore capitulates and Republicans say, again, "Told you so." Fees, like for auto registration, go up and everyone goes bananas - tax and spend Moore! It becomes an unwinnable, unsolvable death spiral, with the Republican wolves salivating at the door. They will run roughshod over the environment to favor business and development. Democrats in Maryland love or at least rely on their corporate money, too.
The Democratic Socialists are right - capitalism is the problem - but they, and mainstream Democrats, should be vigorously going after the Trump administration for mimicking aspects of communist control, and they - as far as we can tell - never frame their pitch with those words.
The Trump administration and Project 2025 are absolutely terrifying on so many levels, but people still will fall for the old far-left red boogeyman line when it should be flipped on its head. One of the core principles of communism is the replacement of market competition, prices, and profits with government-directed production. The state - here, the Trump administration - decides what goods to make, how many to produce, and what they should cost. OK, technically, it's not communism, because the administration is not actually taking over private businesses or sectors, but there is no question, in its attacks on clean energy like wind and solar and EVs, the administration has completely upended free-market principals of supply and demand.
Trump has literally halted the closure of up to 45 coal-fired power plants, which no longer make any economic sense in the face of cheaper natural gas and renewables. Last month, as Engineering News-Record reported, the president ordered the government to "direct up to $850 million to upgrade or restart 15 U.S. coal-fired power plants, build new ones in two states and support construction of a controversial California coal export terminal."
As an aside, our little climate campaign, Coal Kills Baltimore, has been working for 5 1/2 years to close the coal export terminal in Baltimore.
The One Big Beautiful Bill wiped out nearly $83 billion in private sector clean energy projects that did not align with the Trump administration's agenda.
We asked AI if the Trump administration is acting as communists: "Economists from the Yale School of Management note that while these actions mimic a Marxist or "command economy" framework by injecting the federal government into private capital flows, the administration's goal is mercantilist and protectionist. Communism seeks to eliminate corporate profit entirely; the Trump administration’s energy interventions seek to use state power to maximize corporate profit for politically favored domestic industries (like coal and oil) while suppressing competitors (like wind and solar)."