Coal Dust Clouds a Baltimore Neighborhood’s Fight for Clean Air

A bulldozer operates at the CSX Corporation's Curtis Bay Piers coal terminal. (Image courtesy of the South Baltimore Community Land Trust)

“To prove the role of coal dust, we had to answer rigorous questions,” said study co-author Russell Dickerson, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic science at UMD. “When is there dust? Where did it come from? What direction does the wind blow? How big are the pollutant particles? How long do they last in the atmosphere and how far can they travel? To prove that the dust was coming from the coal terminal, we had to carefully track wind direction and bulldozer movement across the area.”

Originally built in 1882, the CSX terminal is a large storage facility for coal brought by rail primarily from coal mines in the mid-Atlantic region to transport abroad. For more than a century, the facility significantly contributed to Baltimore’s economic activity and status as a top exporter of American coal. In 2021, an explosion at the terminal showered the neighborhood with coal dust and led to increased complaints as well as additional scrutiny from federal, state and local entities.

That year, the research team confirmed the presence of coal dust in the Curtis Bay neighborhood as far as 1.2 km from the terminal. The team’s new paper further examined the terminal’s bulldozer activity and its potential air pollution. The researchers set up meteorological and air pollution-monitoring devices around the Curtis Bay neighborhood, as well as a camera programmed to take pictures at regular time intervals to observe visible bulldozer activity at the coal terminal. From July 2022 to July 2023, the researchers gathered minute-by-minute data on wind direction, visible presence of bulldozer activity on coal piles at the terminal and levels of particulate matter air pollutants of various sizes—including black carbon, a core component of soot and coal dust.

“Curtis Bay residents have reported for years that they observe black dust that accumulates at their homes and in the community and they attribute this to coal dust,” said study senior author Christopher D. Heaney, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Bloomberg School. “The approach we used in this study revealed that the coal terminal is a significant driver of air pollution burdens in this community.”

Sacoby Wilson, director of UMD’s Health, Environmental, and Economic Justice Lab and professor of global, environmental and occupational health, said the toxicants in the air in Curtis Bay can lead to or exacerbate asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and increased emergency room visits and hospitalizations for local residents. He added that his center's team previously found that this area has the highest (worst) environmental justice score in the state.

“This community-driven research project demonstrates the importance of listening to those who live everyday with coal pollution emanating from the CSX facility,” he said.

The new research findings also suggest that existing mitigation measures at the coal terminal are not sufficient.

“To keep the coal dust down, they hose the coal piles down with water and surfactant, which is similar to detergent. There are also wind fences they put up to try to hold the air pollutants back," Dickerson said. “But these methods are insufficient, and there’s still considerable air pollution in the neighborhood. The community is currently trying to work with CSX to reduce unwanted coal dust movement, including creating a full enclosure of the terminal so that dust can’t escape as easily.”

The team hopes to continue monitoring the coal terminal’s potential impacts on air pollution and collaborating with Curtis Bay residents for possible solutions. According to Dickerson, plans for improvements are underway with CSX’s agreement to replace its locomotives with electric ones after an earlier study documented diesel pollution in the area—a “small victory” in the ongoing fight for improved air quality in the South Baltimore community.

“More needs to be done to address the cumulative impacts of facilities like the CSX facility on the health and quality of life of Curtis Bay residents,” Wilson said.