In a ruling that's left Dundalk-area residents shaking their heads, a federal court has declared that recent owners of the century-old steel-making complex at Sparrows Point can't be made to clean up past contamination of surrounding waters.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz ruled that under the terms of a 2003 bankruptcy sale of the steel mill, the company that bought Sparrows Point from Bethlehem Steel Corp. could not be held liable for any pollution that escaped the 2,300-acre peninsula before that sale.
State and federal regulators had argued that all subsequent owners of Sparrows Point were bound by a 1997 consent decree that required Bethlehem Steel to investigate and remediate any contamination caused by its operations. Severstal, the Russian steelmaker which operated the plant from 2008 until earlier this year, began removing and treating toxic chemicals in the ground water in a handful of spots last year. But the company balked at conducting an extensive search for contaminants in the waters and sediments on the bottom of the Patapsco and Bear Creek, a tributary.
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