Brentin Mock, Grist - The youth of South Baltimore have scored another round in their fight to keep a mammoth waste incinerator out of their neighborhood. Baltimore County’s regional cooperative purchasing committee voted to end their contract with the company Energy Answers, which has plans to build a $1 billion solid waste-to-energy facility in the working class neighborhood of Curtis Bay. (Ever watch The Wire? Season Two? That neighborhood.)
The youth organizing group Free Your Voice, made up of students who live or attend school close to the proposed incinerator site, has been mobilizing friends, neighbors, teachers, and other school administrators over the past three years toreject the waste-burning facility. As fans of The Wire may remember, Curtis Bay is already overrun with pollution-heavy industrial operations and port activity.
Baltimore Metropolitan Council communications officer Laura Van Wert confirmed for Grist that it is preparing to part ways with the incinerator project, stating: “The Baltimore Regional Cooperative Purchasing Committee, in its continued effort to provide the most reliable and cost-effective energy to its members, voted to go in another direction on Feb. 10 and recommended termination of its contracts with Energy Answers.”
The waste-to-energy project, which would convert plastic, rubber, and trash into 160 MW of energy, had already hit some speed bumps by failing to purchase pollution offset credits by the agreed-upon date and also not securing all of the financing needed to started building. A spokesperson for Energy Answers told us that she could not comment on the council’s vote to end the contract because she had not heard anything about it yet.
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