Why Baltimore

Baltimore is a populous and important, midAtlantic, industrial deepwater port city, located 50 km north of Washington, DC, and 150 km east of the Appalachian mountains. A mere two hour drive to Philadelphia and four hours to New York, Baltimore is a major transportation thoroughfare between populous southern and northern cities. Its location makes it an excellent end member of the great northeastern “megalopolis” extending from the Baltimore/Washington region to Boston.

This corridor is highly important as it contains most of the major Northeastern US cities and the single largest concentration of the US population. Baltimore is an excellent choice to study the properties of local, regional, and interregionally transported aerosol emissions affecting urban air quality and investigating our hypothesis regarding aerosol age, time-resolved sampling, and toxicological response. Like much of the Northeast, PM air quality in Baltimore is heavily influenced by secondary sulfate formed during transport of sulfur emissions from the heavily industrial Ohio Valley which lies >300 kilometers to the west. Air traveling from the Ohio Valley is orographically projected by the Appalachians which facilitates cloud processing and concomitant heterogeneous conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfate, providing a more aged/processed aerosol which can be differentiated from local emissions by particle size, by chemical composition (e.g., S:Se ratio,35; and presence of Hydroxy methane sulfonic acid 76), and thus by advanced FA of time- and size-resolved chemical data. Few sources (most notably one oil- and one major coal-fired power plant which lie 60 and 200 km due west, respectively) lie to the west, allowing for observation of mainly aged/processed inter-regionally transported aerosol during west winds which dominate the region’s climatology.

The city is also influenced by urban emissions in Washington, DC, and a cluster of coal-fired power plants, and municipal and sludge incinerators along the Potomac River extending 50 to 90 km southwest of Baltimore. Locally, most of the Baltimore’s industry is concentrated in the 125 km 2 area comprising South Baltimore and Dundalk, just a few kilometers from the center of the City, and immediately adjacent to populous neighborhoods.

In all, the South Baltimore/Dundalk area contains >40 industrial facilities, including 16 chemical manufacturing plants; 5 bulk materials shipping terminals; 2 medical waste, 1 municipal, and 1 sludge incinerator, 6 land fills for storage of domestic and industrial, including hazardous, waste; the nation’s largest Yeast Plant, a rendering pant, an automotive painting plant, and a major Steel plant. In addition to industrial sources, emissions from some 30,000 heavy diesel vehicles using the City’s three major toll facilities (Ft. McHenry, Harbor Tunnel, and Key Bridge) each day adds to the areas air pollution problems.

Mean and max PM10 concentrations in south Baltimore (Fairfield) substantially exceed those observed in rural and suburban areas of Maryland by as much as 50% (In 1997, means were31 _g/m 3 at Fairfield vs. 17 to 20 _g/m 3 ; maximum at Fair field were 86 _g/m 3 , respectively, versus 50 to 70 _g/m 3 at rural and suburban sites. Total aerosol carbon concentrations in summer range from to 2 to 10 _g/m 3 (78), about 20% of this is elemental carbon, the remainder is characterized as organic carbon by thermal-optical analysis (79). During the AEOLOS intensive of August, 1995, concentrations of Ca, Cr, Hg, Ti, Cl, Mn, Mo, Sb, and Zn measured in east Baltimore during winds from the direction of the BRESCO municipal incinerator, exceeded those measured upwind of the City by from 10 to >20-fold. Note that Sb, Zn, Hg, Cr, and Cl are highly enriched in incinerator emissions and that CMB modeling attributes major fractions of the aerosol burden of these elements to incinerators in Maryland. In samples influenced by winds from the Bethlehem Steel plant and sources in Hawkins Point, Cr, Fe, Mn, Sb, V, and Zn concentrations exceeded those outside the city by from 4- to 10-fold. Lastly, Baker et.al. has observed 10-fold enrichments in PAH concentrations in the Curtis Creek area, presumably due to the high density of motor vehicles in the area. While there may be other factors, it is, perhaps, poignantly relevant that the percentage of obstructive pulmonary disease deaths in the south Baltimore region is nearly 1.7-fold greater than for the whole of the city.

Thus, Baltimore clearly offers a rich “laboratory” for studies of air pollution and health.

Legend to PM10, SO2 and VOC emission map:

Key ID	Plant Name	Address	City	PM10 (tons/year)	SO2 (tons/year)	VOC (tons/year)
1	BGE- Crane	1001 Carroll Island Rd.	Baltimore	134	0	0
2	BGE- Gould Street	2105 Gould St.	Baltimore	5	428	3
3	BGE- Riverside	Sollers Point @ Turners Station	Turners Station	4	6	3
4	Baltimore Resco Incinerator	1801 Old Annapolis Rd.	Baltimore	0	881	6
5	Blue Circle Cement	Penwood Rd.	Dundalk	131	0	0
6	Carr-Lowrey Glass	2201 Kloman St.	Baltimore	0	2	0
7	Condea Vista Company	3441 Fairfield Rd.	Baltimore	10	249	11
8	General Motors	2122 Broening Hwy.	Baltimore	17	8	700
9	C.J. Langenfelder & Son	8427 Sparrows Point Blvd.	Sparrows Point	0	0	0
10	Millenium Inorganic Chemicals	3901 Fort Armistead Rd.	Baltimore	53	160	27
11	Pemco Corp.	5601 Eastern Ave.	Baltimore	4	0	1
12	Red Star Yeast	2100 Van Deman St.	Baltimore	1	5	247
13	Sherwin-Williams Company	2325 Hollins Ferry Rd.	Baltimore	0	0	154
14	Tate & Lyle Sugar	1100 Key Hwy., East	Baltimore	19	202	2

Legend to metal emission map:

KEY ID	PLANT NAME	ADDRESS	CITY	Metal	reported emissions (TONS/YEAR)
1	ATOTECH USA INC.	1900 CHESAPEAKE AVE.	BALTIMORE	ANTIMONY	5
1	ATOTECH USA INC.	1900 CHESAPEAKE AVE.	BALTIMORE	CHROMIUM	5
2	AVESTA SHEFFIELD EAST INC.	7700 ROLLING MILL RD.	BALTIMORE	CHROMIUM	5
				NICKEL	5
				MANGANESE	4
3	BALTIMORE MARINE INDS. INC.	600 SHIPYARD RD.	SPARROWS	COPPER	4
3	BALTIMORE MARINE INDS. INC.	600 SHIPYARD RD.	SPARROWS	ZINC	4
4	BETHLEHEM STEEL CORP	5111 N. POINT BLVD.	SPARROWS	CHROMIUM	7
				MANGANESE	7
				ZINC	7
				COPPER	6
				NICKEL	6
				LEAD	4
5	BRANDON SHORES & WAGNER	1000 BRANDON SHORES RD.	BALTIMORE	BARIUM	3
				CHROMIUM	3
				COBALT	3
				COPPER	3
				LEAD	3
				MANGANESE	3
				NICKEL	3
				SELENIUM	3
				ZINC	3
				ARSENIC	2
6	C. P. CRANE GENERATING STATION	1001 CARROLL ISLAND RD.	BALTIMORE	ZINC	1
7	CHEMETALS INC. BALTIMORE PLANT	610 PITTMAN RD.	BALTIMORE	MANGANESE	8
8	DRYDEN OIL CO.	9300 PULASKI HWY.	BALTIMORE	ZINC	4
9	GMC NORTH	2122 BROENING HWY.	BALTIMORE	MANGANESE	4
9	GMC NORTH	2122 BROENING HWY.	BALTIMORE	ZINC	4
10	GRACE DAVISON	5500 CHEMICAL RD.	BALTIMORE	NICKEL	5
10	GRACE DAVISON	5500 CHEMICAL RD.	BALTIMORE	CHROMIUM	4
11	LASTING PAINTS INC.	200 S. FRANKLINTOWN RD.	BALTIMORE	ANTIMONY	4
12	MARYLAND SPECIALTY WIRE INC.	100 COCKEYSVILLE RD.	COCKEYSVILLE	CHROMIUM	5
				NICKEL	5
				MANGANESE	4
13	MIDDLE RIVER AIRCRAFT SYS.	103 CHESAPEAKE PARK PLAZA	BALTIMORE	COPPER	5
				MANGANESE	4
				ZINC	4
14	MILLENNIUM INORGANIC CHEMICALS	3901 FORT ARMISTEAD RD.	BALTIMORE	MANGANESE	5
15	MILLENNIUM SPECIALTY CHEMICALS	2701 BROENING HWY.	BALTIMORE	CADMIUM	5
				SELENIUM	4
				ZINC	4
16	MONARCH RUBBER CO.	3500 PULASKI HWY.	BALTIMORE	ZINC	3
17	PEMCO CORP.	5601 EASTERN AVE.	BALTIMORE	CHROMIUM	5
				BARIUM	4
				COBALT	4
				COPPER	4
				MANGANESE	4
				NICKEL	4
				ZINC	4
18	RED STAR YEAST	2100 VAN DEMAN ST.	BALTIMORE	ZINC	3
19	REPUBLIC ENGRD STLS	3501 E. BIDDLE ST.	BALTIMORE	CHROMIUM	5
19	REPUBLIC ENGRD STLS	3501 E. BIDDLE ST.	BALTIMORE	NICKEL	5
20	ROCKLAND BLEACH & DYE WORKS	1601 EDISON HWY.	BALTIMORE	ANTIMONY	4
21	SHERWIN-WILLIAMS CO.	2325 HOLLINS FERRY RD.	BALTIMORE	CHROMIUM	5
				LEAD	5
				ZINC	4
22	SIGNODE EASTERN OPS.	4505 N. POINT BLVD.	BALTIMORE	LEAD	5
23	TECH. ALLOY CO. INC.	2310 CHESAPEAKE AVE.	BALTIMORE	COPPER	2
24	UNILEVER	5300 HOLABIRD AVE.	BALTIMORE	ZINC	3
25	VULCAN HART CO.	3600 N. POINT BLVD.	BALTIMORE	CHROMIUM	5
				MANGANESE	4
				NICKEL	4

Maps prepared by Jennifer Moore