Anne Arundel County

Written By jeanne mccann

Anne Arundel County is fighting multiple environmental injustices, particularly in the Lothian area where many residents live near mining sites and wastewater treatment plants, which are often noncompliant with operating permits. Twenty percent of people living within a three-mile radius of these sites are African-American.   The Sands Road area has been termed a “sacrifice zone,” a term used for communities — often low-income or people of color — where residents live close to polluting industries or other hazards.

Among the issues:

  • The Westport Reclamation Site and Riddle Mine have been operating on special exceptions – Westport since 1967.

  • Sandy Fill, a medical reclamation site, operates with a permit in the center of the community.

  • Heavy truck traffic–up to 80 trucks per hour, all day – and gravel pit on Sands Road, a state-labeled “scenic” road,

  • According to a 2015 University of Maryland School of Public Health health impact assessment, 33 industrial sites, 22 in operation, including mining and disposal sites, are within five miles of one another. Two landfills in the review had histories of cancer-causing contaminants above allowable health levels.

  • There are also five mobile home communities in the vicinity, each with its own small wastewater treatment plant that discharges into the nearby Patuxent River or one of its tributaries. In the past few years, five of the treatment plants have been out of compliance with their discharge permits more often than not, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection’s ECHO database.

Read more about the environmental issues in Anne Arundel County:

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