Wastewater war: City seeks right to keep using Sparrows Point’s pipes

Baltimore has accused Sparrows Point LLC of looking out for No. 1 at the expense of residents’ No. 2.

After years of sending treated wastewater through two pipelines at the former steelmaking plant, the city says Sparrows Point is trying to force it to discharge all effluent from 1.3 million city and county residents into the Back River.

“This case arises from the Defendant’s attempt to hold hostage the city and its Baltimore County inhabitants’ ability to flush their toilets, just so that Defendant may pursue its extortionate demands for more money while providing fewer services,” the city’s complaint states.

Sparrows Point, which agreed to continue to let the city keep using the pipelines for a year in September 2012, sought to terminate that agreement two months ago. It argued that the city breached the contract, in part, by not paying on time, to the point where Sparrows Point began sending monthly invoices.

“The sad truth about this entire episode is that the City has known for years it could not continue to rely on steel companies who could not afford to stay open as a safety valve for its own failure to take care of its own wastewater, yet has chosen to do nothing about it,” the company said in defending against the restraining order.

A Baltimore City Circuit judge granted the city a temporary restraining order last month allowing it to continue to send up to 40 million gallons per day of treated wastewater from the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant through Sparrows Point’s pipes.

Lawyers on both sides said they are attempting to resolve their differences out of court. The temporary restraining order will expire in mid- November.

The legal battle between the two sides shifted to federal court this week, according to court filings. Sparrows Point LLC is based in Missouri, which is why the company sought Thursday to remove the case to U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

The company acquired the site last year and announced in December it would be selling equipment and parts after it was unable to find a buyer.

Under the September 2012 agreement between the city and the company, the city could continue to use the pipes at a cost of $80,000 a month, according to court documents. The agreement was reached after Sparrows Point stopped producing steel. The treatment plant has been sending the effluent through the steel mill’s pipes since at least the 1940s, when it was used as part of the steelmaking process, according to court documents.

Gerard P. Martin of Rosenberg Martin Greenberg LLP in Baltimore, Sparrows Point’s lawyer, said the two pipelines enter the site and then break up into a massive network of pipes that looks like “a pile of spaghetti” in drawings of the property.

As the two sides attempted to work out a new contract, Sparrows Point alleges, it offered to take less wastewater for $80,000 a month or continue taking 40 million gallons per day at $150,000 per month to help offset “significant” operating costs.

Sparrows Point also claimed the city only needed to send 18 million gallons per day of treated wastewater through the site and still be in environmental compliance for discharges into the Back River. The city countered the region could face “irreparable harm” to the environment if it did not have the flexibility to send up to 40 million gallons per day to Sparrows Point.

The Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant is designed to treat 180 million gallons per day of wastewater, according to the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Waste and Wastewater. Approximately 40 percent of the effluent flows to Sparrows Point, according to the bureau.