The "Fells Point/Harbor East is about to become unlivable for 2 years" thread

[HarborEastGuy]

Originally Posted by pokeable

O.o

Do you really have an architectural/Urban planning degree?

While I would love further expansion of the "feel" of Harbor East, do you think that the current feeders into/out of Fells and Harbor East can support a 27 acre mixed use development, from what I remember of the initial proposal, would include 1500-2000 multifamily units?

They expect that 1,500-2,000 households will want to live right on top of a toxic waste dump
that was too expensive to clean up??

[Kristin730]

I haven't lived in Baltimore for almost three years now, but when we moved there in 2003, we heard repeatedly that that site would not be safe to be built on for at least a hundred years. Only eleven years later and they're going ahead? Surprise surprise . . .

[LoveToRow]

Originally Posted by HarborEastGuy

I moved here in Dec 2012 and no one ever mentioned it to me. My introduction to what was going on was eating the at the Black Olive (awesome organic food there) and seeing all the John's Hopkins Air sensors all over their balcony. I asked the very nice gentleman working there and he explained what was going on. In the last 3 days I've talked to about 30 people in Harbor East and no one seemed to know this abomination was about to happen. I imagine a lot of people aren't aware of this.

So what if the project is overdue? It shouldn't be happening at all until they remove the entire toxic waste dump. I sure wish the local news would jump on this..

Anything that irritates a left wing extremist makes me happy.

[NCcostello]

Get out now folks....you will not be working in a few years because you will begin to get sicker and sicker before you die very early...property values don't go up in a toxic waste zone folks....this is the same chemical from the PGE lawsuit in Erin Brochovitch for those who don't know what this stuff is....not paranoid..just stating the facts....

[drive carephilly]

I'm a planner with some experience working on a site with hexavalent chromium contamination. I did some work on the remediation of the American Barrel Company site in Camden, NJ. Our project got a cap because the plume had spread really far (and deep) towards the Delaware River. Trying to dig it up would've been costly and, because of the hydrology, not very effective. If you start digging all that stuff goes airborne when it wasn't before. If it rains during the however many weeks/months it would take you to get it all it will just push the plume further and faster towards the river/bay. When you start digging deep you run the risk of diverting underground water flows into the plume.

On the other hand, hex chromium is nasty stuff. I definitely would not want to live on top of it. The best use for that kind of site is to cap it, cap it again, truck in a bunch of clean fill and put a park on top of it. I can't see how digging around in it - for pilings, sewer, water, etc - is really safe in the short or long term.