$2.2M settlement reached in Baltimore lead paint case

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Maryland settled a civil suit against a Baltimore broadcast tower owner and a painting company after suing the firms for allegedly spreading lead-based paint chips throughout the Woodberry neighborhood.

The $2.2 million settlement and consent decree bans Skyline Tower Painting from performing any lead abatement, painting or surface remediation work in the state. It also requires Television Tower Inc. to properly complete repainting work using accredited contractors by the end of June and conduct a final cleanup of the surrounding area, as well as ongoing monitoring afterward.

“This is what accountability looks like,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said at a Thursday morning news conference outside a Woodberry playground. “The children who play here deserve a playground free of dangerous contamination.”

The settlement resolves the state’s civil action against the broadcast tower operator and the painting company, which the state alleged removed lead paint from the tower in 2022 with scraping and forceful power washing that spread lead-based paint chips throughout Woodberry and other neighborhoods surrounding TV Hill.

The tower painting firm and its president, Christopher Mecklem, 43, of Nebraska, also pleaded guilty in December to a criminal count of improperly disposing of a controlled hazardous substance.

The defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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In addition. both firms are defendants in a separate lawsuit filed by Woodberry residents over lead paint contamination in the neighborhood. A team of attorneys from Murphy, Falcon & Murphy represents the plaintiffs in that case. The trial is scheduled to begin in late 2027.

Maryland Environment Secretary Serena McIlwain said that Thursday’s settlement is “not just really about accountability and enforcement” but “also about making sure that the restoration happens, that we are cleaning up, that everything that happened is undone.”

Lead exposure in young children is linked to developmental delays, learning difficulties, behavioral issues, weight loss, hearing loss and other serious damage to the brain and nervous system.

McIlwain’s agency received complaints in June 2022 about paint fragments that had fallen off the TV tower while Skyline, which is not accredited in Maryland to conduct lead-paint abatement services, was repainting it. Baltimore City issued a stop-work order, but “by then, lead paint chips and debris had spread as far as a half mile,” Brown said.

Brown said that the $2.2 million in civil penalties “will go directly toward protecting children from lead exposure, cleaning up our water and disposing of hazardous substances.”

About half of the money will go to the state’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Fund; the rest will be divided between the Clean Water Fund and State Hazardous Substance Control Fund.

This story has been updated.