The Sparrows Point Facility (SPF) is located on an approximately 3,100 acre peninsula reaching into Baltimore Harbor. More than 100 years of steelmaking and related activities has resulted in SPF and some offshore areas being contaminated. In 1997, EPA and the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) entered into a Consent Decree (CD) under inter alia, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and state law with then owner, Bethlehem Steel Corporation (BSC). The CD required, among other things, a Site Wide Investigation; implementation of interim measures; and a Corrective Measure Study. However, Bethlehem Steel filed for bankruptcy, and the property went through a succession of owners. During that time a court ruled that a successive owner was not liable for the offshore contamination. Although the EPA RCRA program is overseeing the cleanup of the onshore facility, the offshore portion of the work has been deferred to the Superfund program. Therefore, the Removal program will be assessing the offshore sediments at the site to determine if a removal action is needed.
