Editor's note: Click on the audio clip to hear Curtis Bay residents share their memories about the day of the explosion last year.
The massive explosion behind the chain link fences of the CSX Transportation Coal Piers was heard for miles across Baltimore on Dec. 30 last year. It shook the earth beneath Curtis Bay residents’ homes breaking windows, spreading a new layer of coal dust across the neighborhood and was even caught on video.
Tiffany Thompson, a native of nearby Cherry Hill, moved to Curtis Bay three years ago. The 49-year-old mother and former educator has not only noticed a difference in her physical health, she’s been having trouble breathing these days, but the traumatic experience of a loud explosion has forced her to hope for the best but plan for the worst.
“I often talk to my children and say, if we hear a boom too close, grab the cat, grab the dog we’re going to just run outside into the school field,” Thompson said during a visit to her home on a hill above the coal pier.
She keeps a pair of shoes near the front door at all times, just in case.
“That’s our emergency exit because we don’t know what that boom is going to mean or how it’s gonna look,” she said and remembered the explosion vividly. “It was like the world shook for us. It was a little scary because you didn’t know what was going on.”
Officials claim that no residents or workers were injured by the blast though some neighbors interviewed for this story counter that there were unreported injuries. Baltimore City leaders hosted two informational hearings to uncover the details of the explosion in June and August. A third party investigation was conducted to determine the cause of the explosion. A $121,000 fine by OSHA for violating worker safety. Disgruntled residents filed a lawsuit seeking class action status. Organizers have been protesting the coal pier for months. State officials negotiated air quality violation fines for nearly six months. Countless community meetings, hours of eyewitness testimony, a verbal lashing from Baltimore City council members have all transpired in the past year.
But roughly a month after the explosion, CSX's coal operation has continued as the second largest coal exporter on the East Coast.
The CSX coal terminal was temporarily shuttered between late December 2021 and was still offline in early January 2022. It wasn't until February when the operation resumed.
Demand is highest for coal during the winter for coal-fired power plants along the East Coast. As an export terminal, some of the coal is sold locally to coal-fired power plants but it appears that much of it is exported overseas.
CSX transports domestic coal, coke – a fuel source with more water and less carbon than coal — and iron ore to power plants, steel manufacturers and industrial plants. Its coal business shipped 706,000 train carloads in 2021 primarily from Appalachian coal mines in West Virginia to ports along the East Coast.
"Operations at the CSX Curtis Bay Coal Piers have been temporarily suspended while engineering teams assess the extent of the damage," Cindy Schild told SPGlobal Jan. 5 last year. "In the meantime, coal shipments to Curtis Bay are being rerouted and we are working closely with impacted customers."
Company representatives pleaded with regulators in a letter that its operation was essential to both the local and global markets.
The export terminal sells shipments of coal to customers across India, Europe and the Middle East, according to tracking by SPGlobal. During its closure, the customer shipments were re-routed through different ports.
In early January, CSX had a charred 770-foot-long tunnel and tower structure with capacity to export 14 million tons of coal unable to transport much of anything. The force of the explosion blew the panels off an industrial tower.
While the ignition source was not determined, “the cause of the explosion was a localized build up of methane within the conveyor belt tunnel used to load coal to ships on the north side of the facility. It was determined that inadequate ventilation led to the accumulation of methane," according to CSX.
Investigators described that the operations were akin to a coal mine because the underground tunnels require quality ventilation to avoid explosions. Investigators surmised that one potential spark could have been from faulty electrical wiring since the explosion happened after a contractor replaced old tunnel lights with energy efficient LED bulbs.
“On the morning of the explosion, employees reported the tunnel had just been cleaned, and there was very little accumulated coal in the walkways. The general consensus was that the tunnel was as clean as it had ever been. As the coal was beginning to move along the conveyor, it was reported to be very wet as well, with more than one employee describing the coal entering the transfer tower as “black rain” due to how wet the coal was. Some lights inside the tunnel were undergoing maintenance, as some of the new LED lights which had recently been installed were not working and were being repaired," according to the investigator report. "The facility is not under the Mine Safety and Health Administration jurisdiction."
CSX declined an interview request for this story. When asked to connect with an industry lobbyist on behalf of the company, CSX did not respond.
The company touts on its website that it has invested $60 million in the past five years in Curtis Bay “setting new standards in environmental stewardship and providing improved capacity, efficiency and flexibility.”
The company strives to transport coal ‘just in time’ for customers, reducing the amount of time the coal piles sit on the pier.
Brian Hammock, director of state affairs for CSX, testified during the August city council hearing. CSX did not send a representative to the Baltimore City council hearing in June.
“CSX has followed the lead of experts in the field of industrial hygiene to implement safeguards to ensure that a similar incident does not happen again," Hammock said.
The company installed new ventilation fans on both the damaged north tunnel and the unscathed south tunnel which increases airflow by up to 20 times the previous levels. The company installed air monitoring inside the undamaged south tunnel. Executives stressed that the coal is used to power the Baltimore region’s electric grid and supply coal to allies such as Ukraine during a time of unrest and war.
The freight car containers used to transport coal from Appalachia and the coal piles in Curtis Bay are not covered or enclosed so a strong wind can carry the substance past its fences. The company attempts to keep the coal dust mountains in their place by spraying them with water.
But the company didn’t take “reasonable precautions to prevent particulate matter from becoming airborne,” according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. CSX released emissions including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds without state permit permission.
The decades old issue at the Curtis Bay Coal Terminal is threefold: First, CSX is a rail transport business but its tunnel that feeds coal into ocean vessels created a simulated coal mine susceptible to explosions. Second, because that tunnel is not a real coal mine, it’s not regulated as such, as noted in the investigator’s report. Third, the relationship between CSX and the community has broken down over decades as fewer terminal workers live nearby as they once did.
For decades, the innocuous uncovered mountains of coal seemed like an inert material to the average neighbor. Until last year.
The CSX operation is fed by a steady supply of coal transported by decades old rail lines. Just like the coal mountains that sit on the pier, the rail cars are not sealed on top. The slow and often clunky machinations of the industrial conveyor belt system enables workers to scoop large coal piles with heavy duty equipment. The conveyor belt then continues underground in man-made tunnels where workers ensure the coal is packed into shipping containers of vessels anchored near the pier that juts out into the Chesapeake Bay. Once loaded, the coal is shipped to CSX customers.
But for neighbors like Thompson who lives nearby, she sees something more abstract when she drives past CSX.
“Sickness. Those things that are definitely polluting our air. Mounds and mounds of things that pollutes the air,” she said.
Neighbors complained about frequently washing their vehicles that are covered in grime and dust from typical operations at the coal pier which depends on the strength of the wind that whips up from the bay below the neighborhood.
On a recent clear December day, the most boisterous faction of the Curtis Bay community donned Santa hats, picked up signs, shouted slogans and wrote Christmas cards later mailed to CSX executives.
Activists say they want medical relief funds for the seemingly unrelenting burden for keeping so much toxic infrastructure in a community with fewer than 3,000 people. Beyond that, the goal is to pressure CSX to change the product it exports from coal to almost anything else.
Thompson said she moved into Curtis Bay because she needed stable housing.
“We were transitioning. I had left my house in Northwest Baltimore to care for my mom who had just been diagnosed with stage four cancer. So we had to come stay at her house…when she passed we had to get housing again,” she said. “We found something affordable with just enough room, kind of. But we have grown to love our community.”
Thompson previously taught at a local school and remembered when children would complain about weird smells from what appeared to be industrial site incidents years ago.
“I’ve lived all over. I even cooked on the grill in Cherry Hill,” she said. “I’ve been here for three years and have never cooked on the grill because you never know what’s going to fall [from the sky] especially during the summer, there’s film on your car. So in the summertime we’re washing the car probably twice a week.”
Ray Conaway lives within a few blocks of the coal pier. He was recovering from COVID-19 at home when the explosion happened. The president of the Curtis Bay Community Association remembers both the sounds and smells.
“There was a pretty distinct burnt smell, you know just imagine cooking something for too long and that smell, that aroma that comes with the burnt food. It was not. It did not stay very long. But in the immediate aftermath the smell was pretty prevalent. Accompanied by the vibration. And the loud explosion," he said.
In July, Conaway said the community was adamant that the company would pay money as penance for environmental violations.
“My impression is that the explosion happened, CSX let MDE in. MDE did its visit, they cleaned their hands of this and said let’s move on. And we are absolutely, absolutely not going to allow this to be a slap on the wrists," he said.
Just before Christmas, a dose of justice was served.
The Maryland Department of the Environment inked a $15,000 settlement with CSX for a statewide clean air fund. An extra $100,000 will go to the South Baltimore Community Land Trust to build a new environmental education center.
“It’s only the beginning, this is not going to be the closure. This is not going to be the end. The real solution in this case is to ensure that something like this never happens again," he said.
The Maryland Department for the Environment declined repeated requests for an interview for this story.
The settlement requires CSX to not just pay both the state and the community group but also for the company to improve coordination with Baltimore City to streamline any emergency response notification rules.
“MDE decided it was appropriate that the agreement include the uncommon provision of requiring that the bulk of the penalty go to a community project because of the effect of the explosion on the neighborhood and the longstanding environmental injustices affecting Curtis Bay residents,” according to a press release from MDE released on Friday, just before the Christmas holiday. “MDE also launched a targeted compliance oversight initiative at the CSX facility and other permitted sources in Curtis Bay.”
The Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Horacio Tablada was bullish that the state’s actions “help prevent something like this from happening again.”
But not everyone is so sure there are enough safeguards to protect the community.
Phylicia Porter represents the area on the Baltimore City Council and says CSX has not promised the city that it won’t happen again because the company expects to continue conducting its business.
“They were apologetic with regard to the explosion but any type of firm commitment for any type of substantive operations or logistic changes, I have not experienced or heard of anything from the company,” Porter said.
The argument to keep CSX operating because it fuels the economy is wearing thin on representatives like Porter.
In the coming months, leaders say to expect those with political power to start wielding more control. Porter is exploring the concept of “public health police powers” at the city level but also the power of zoning permits.
“The municipal level lever that we can pull is strictly related to zoning and permitting,” she said.
That means when CSX’s conditional use permit expires in the coming months, the company will have to bargain with city council.
