MDE orders a large windscreen at CSX’s Curtis Bay coal facility. Residents say the existing limited one doesn’t work
The railroad had complained about the cost of an earlier version of the permit, which called for fully enclosing the coal pile to protect the community from blowing dust
Above: Windscreen on south side of the CSX Curtis Bay Coal Terminal. New permit would require a much taller one. (Ryan Johnson, South Baltimore Community Land Trust)
When the state of Maryland last year proposed requiring CSX to enclose its coal terminal operations in Curtis Bay with a physical barrier to prevent the black dust from blowing into the neighborhood, the company protested.
The enclosure would be too expensive, the rail company complained in a formal response, estimating it would cost $120 million to build a steel-frame structure tall enough to surround the mountain of coal – at times 110 feet tall – at the facility.
Such a structure would reduce the volume of coal it handles, “unreasonably burdening its rail carrier operations and discriminating against it as a rail carrier,” the company argued.
The state this week released permit restrictions that would require the railroad to do a lot less – erect an open-air “windscreen” estimated to cost around $50 million.
In a press release, the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) described the permit’s windscreen and other requirements as among “the most stringent in the state’s history.”
But residents of this far south Baltimore working-class community argue the document is vague and unenforceable.
“It includes a requirement for a windscreen, but it doesn’t define what that screen is supposed to achieve,” Carlos Sanchez, an organizer with the South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT), pointed out.
Because the permit sets no enforceable limit on the amount of coal dust that may escape the facility, MDE has no enforcement tools with which to hold the company accountable.
“The permit becomes meaningless as a protective measure if it doesn’t have a measurable and enforceable target for coal dust reduction,” said another SBCLT organizer, Greg Sawtell, whose group has been calling for MDE to deny a permit at the site altogether.
“A serious regulatory response would demand far more than what this permit requires” – Carlos Sanchez.
Residents are especially offended by what they see as the company’s casual attitude to its public health impact.
At a public meeting, a CSX official described the windscreen as similar to what one sees at a Topgolf facility designed to stop golf balls from hitting passing cars.
“We’re not cars. We’re human beings breathing in particulate matter,” Sanchez said. “We don’t need a solution fit for Topgolf. We need a solution to protect our lungs from the coal dust we breathe every day.”
Curtis Bay residents Vilma Guttierez and Viki Castillo display test strips covered with coal dust – data collected outside the windscreen on the south side of the CSX terminal. (Ryan Johnson, South Baltimore Community Land Trust)
Black Carbon, Particulates
Asked to comment on the permit released by MDE this week, a spokeswoman said CSX is reviewing it and had no comment. “We will have more to say at a later date,” Sheriee Bowman told The Brew.
In its response to the permit’s initial draft, CSX submitted a consultant’s report that described the terminal’s current dust control systems as compliant with state and federal law.
The Jacksonville-FL-based company, which has hinted in the past it may sue MDE over the permit, has 120 days to submit plans for the screen and another 18 months to erect it.
As described in MDE’s permit, the windscreen isn’t intended to block or filter out coal dust particles, which can be very fine.
Instead, the screen would act as a curtain to block the wind from spreading the coal particles into the surrounding area. An enhanced spraying system, also required under the new permit, is meant to further prevent this dispersal.
Sanchez said the latest peer-reviewed research shows that the wind screens and water sprayers already in use at the terminal are inadequate.
• New study strengthens link between CSX coal terminal and air pollution in Baltimore’s Curtis Bay (7/22/25)
• Long before today’s explosion, Curtis Bay residents complained about black grit from the CSX coal terminal (12/30/21)
He pointed to a recent study that found that outside of CSX’s limited windscreen experiment on the southern portion of their facility, black carbon and particulates were blowing into the community.
The levels of pollutants were higher, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers and community collaborators found, when the terminal was active and wind was blowing westward toward residential areas.
The study is the latest of a string of studies about the terminal’s environmental impacts led by Hopkins and the community since a December 30, 2021 explosion rocked the plant and ignited public anger about its operations.
“Coal dust still reaches our homes, coats our porches, and enters our bodies,” said Sanchez, a co-author of the Hopkins study. “A serious regulatory response would demand far more than what this permit requires.”