A swimmable, fishable harbor: Or, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yesterday was Earth Day, and like most of you I found myself reading 123456789 articles about the Earth itself, mostly about how it’s actively trying to kill us all currently in the form of volcanoes, historically significant earthquakes and the impending emergence of the Mole People who want to eradicate humanity (probably).

One string of articles I read illustrated how the Waterfront Partnership is unveiling its “Healthy Harbor Initiative,” a 10 year effort to clean Baltimore’s inner harbor. You can read the full breadth of their first year’s proposal here, essentially it’s a laundry list of ways that WP can and will insert itself into future harbor development and attempt to score lots of city/state/federal grants for the foreseeable future, including dressing people up as fish to educate the public about clean water. Coz hey, somebody’s gotta do it.

The initiative is a step in the right direction but it’s too cutesy; they want to float islands of native plants around the harbor in an effort to soak up excess nutrients from sewage runoff, place bubblers in areas where oxygen levels are low (which they’ve been doing for years to reduce the stench around Harborplace), things that are aimed at educating the public and spending lots of money but don’t really address the core issues – infrastructure, mostly – as to what is perpetuating the harbor’s current state.

And I use the term perpetuate, since as we all know the Inner Harbor got to the point it finds itself in today primarily because it was one of the most industrial harbors ever known in American history. There are countless stories and examples of how industry had been poisoning the harbor for many many many decades leading up to the late 80s, but I’ll use one portion of the harbor as an example: Fell’s Point.

Up until 1985, right around that gigantic empty lot at the end of Block St., sat a chrome factory. Originally the Baltimore Chrome Works (1845) and eventually incorporated into Allied Chemical (1951), the processing of chromate into chrome went on for well over 100 years until it was discovered that not only were employees of the facility developing cancer from inhaling chromium dust, but the plant itself was destroying the Chesapeake Bay by dumping delicious, delicious chromium waste into the water. The plant shut down in 1985 and the site took 15 years and $100 million to remediate. But that’s just the land. How much of that waste ended up in the sediment, where it will most likely sit for eons to come? I’m willing to bet if that silt were dredged it would kill every living thing within the Inner Harbor, assuming that still exists.

Fell’s as a whole was a prominent center of industry for the city until the end of the 1980s, a far cry from the seemingly upscale waterfront tourist destination it appears to have developed into the past, oh, 6 years or so. You know that fancy pants restaurant Kali’s Court, next to Duda’s? Used to be part of a foundry. Lacey foundry, which closed in 1989. Lumber yards, foundries, ore refineries and shipping lanes all running out of Fell’s Point, happily dumping the most toxic things known to man into the harbor, for hundreds of years. The water surrounding that area may be cleaner now, but what’s on the bottom could literally kill you.

And that’s just Fell’s Point. Every other area in and or surrounding the Inner Harbor (Sparrow’s Point especially, an environmental catastrophe even to this day) has a similar tale. Fixing the sewage problem is just the first step which is going to take well over 10 years, it’ll take a lot more than a guy in a fish suit and LEED certification to deal with the worst of it.

Photos taken from Fell’s Point, Jacqueline Greff 2005