In an age of heightened climate awareness, Baltimore City continues to suffer from numerous environmental hazards, particularly a high rate of air pollution. The issue highlights some underlying problems that exacerbate this pollution, specifically the lack of current, accurate data on air quality in most Baltimore neighborhoods, and the lack of regulations that allow major sources of pollution to affect residential areas.

The Maryland Department of the Environment records the Baltimore area’s air quality levels using monitors within and beyond Baltimore City. It is a useful large scale assessment of the Baltimore area’s air quality, showing that air quality has marginally improved since 2013. As a whole, however, these measurements consistently continue to straddle the line of 50 AQI, between “good” and “moderate” air quality. Moreover, the MDE’s data does not specifically focus on Baltimore City. The American Lung Association provides specific data on the city’s air quality from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality System, showing that Baltimore City has supposedly reached an annual average of near zero high particle and ozone days since 2000.

Though the data goes back several decades, the data collected on Baltimore from the EPA does not accurately represent all of Baltimore City. According to Alison Cawood, director of public engagement at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), the only permanent EPA air quality sensor in Baltimore is located in Lake Montebello, in the northeast area of Baltimore City. This means most of Baltimore’s current air quality is being monitored from that one location, and air quality alerts in Baltimore are triggered based on data from one signal.

“If you’re in a community and you feel like there are many concerns that are more specific to where you live and where you are, that is not going to cover it,” Cawood stated. “It’s also not data that people have immediate access to, necessarily.”

Of all the regions in Baltimore City, this narrow coverage of the city’s air particularly neglects the southern region of the city, South Baltimore. This is a critical oversight considering that South Baltimore has historically been an industrial powerhouse, particularly at the time of its integration into Baltimore City in 1919.

Chloe Ahmann, an anthropologist from Cornell University, explained that the city essentially annexed this collection of neighborhoods for their industrial profits and the potential of additional tax revenue.

“But this doesn’t actually fundamentally change the city’s relationship with these communities, which continues to be treated as a space of regulatory exemption and burdened with all sorts of nuisance projects,” Ahmann added.

Because South Baltimore did not have the same public health regulations as the city, many industries were able to move in and set up more industrial projects with hazardous environmental byproducts. During World War II, South Baltimore manufactured military assets with other communities in the country, after which multinational corporate actors established more facilities that created toxic materials. South Baltimore continues to host facilities like these today with the establishment of more polluting sources such as the WIN waste incinerator and the CSX coal terminal.

“We call it the dumping ground of the city,” said Shashawnda Campbell, a community leader and environmental justice coordinator in the South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT). “It’s also called the forgotten part of the city because it’s been used by industries for so long it feels like it's not even acknowledged that people live there.”

Many pollution sources are grandfathered in, as Campbell explained. She spoke on the WIN waste incinerator, a waste-to-energy incinerator that has operated since 1985, calling it the number one air polluter in Baltimore City. Campbell notes that in addition to the toxic chemicals it emits from burning waste, much of which could be composted or recycled instead, the state views the incinerator as one of the highest tiers of renewable energy. As a result, the incinerator is funded by the state’s renewable standard portfolio, “a bucket of money” created to advance renewable energy sources.

“This toxic industry has made its way into this bucket of money that’s technically supposed to be defunding it,” Campbell commented.

Baltimore also suffers from the effects of coal pollution. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Port of Baltimore is the second largest hub for exporting coal in the U.S, so Baltimore sees much movement of coal. This means coal dust is a common problem as uncovered coal trains travel throughout the city. Giant piles of uncovered coal sit very close to schools and homes in Curtis Bay, which Leona Neftaliem from the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability described as “likely one of the most polluted neighborhoods” in Baltimore. The amount of coal dust in the air increased dramatically in 2021, when the CSX coal terminal suffered an unregulated methane explosion that coated surrounding residential neighborhoods in coal dust. 

“People literally described it as feeling like a bomb. They talked about it feeling like a truck hit their houses. That's how bad it shook,” Shashawnda said. “None of these facilities are technically being held accountable until some big mess happens.”

In the face of their severe environmental problems, the South Baltimore communities remain resilient. The SBCLT formed to oppose a waste incinerator that was first proposed in 2009, and since the expiration of its permit, have worked tirelessly to continue advocating for sustainable environmental practices and justice for the community. Some of the accomplishments Shashawnda highlighted include a lawsuit that residents filed against CSX, which ended with the company admitting fault for the disaster at the terminal.

In more recent news, the EPA accepted a Title VI complaint against different agencies and departments in the city, arguing that the “WIN waste project is a racist system that is disproportionately affecting communities of color, and the Department of Public Works is allowing it to happen because they're not doing their initiatives to divert waste from their incinerator.”

Additionally, Cawood and SERC are planning to establish affordable, easy-to-set-up air monitors in neighborhoods that have limited and/or outdated air quality data. These efforts will allow residents to stay informed on air quality in their own communities. This is a means of providing easily accessible data, which can enable people to take appropriate actions to safeguard themselves against any pollutants.

Given the discrepancy between the encouraging, large-scale data on the city’s air quality and the frustrated accounts of South Baltimore residents, there is a dire need to re-examine the quality of the city’s air more thoroughly. People must stay informed on the air they breathe, especially the people of South Baltimore who have a myriad of environmental hazards threatening their health and community. By identifying where this pollution is affecting residents, people within and beyond the city can take action to target emissions and pollutant sources.