New test results show high lead levels in flaking paint at two more bridges – one in Baltimore city (an overpass above I-83 and Guilford Avenue, the Orleans Viaduct) and the other in Baltimore County’s Halethorpe community (an I-95 overpass above Arbutus Avenue near the intersection with Potomac Avenue).

News of these potential public health threats, however, doesn’t come from state environmental or health officials, but from the watchdog environmental group Blue Water Baltimore, which had chips from the two locations tested at an independent laboratory.

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), The Brew has learned, doesn’t plan to test the paint falling from the Orleans Viaduct onto a city street – even though last month it did perform testing on paint falling from another city structure, Baltimore’s 28th Street Bridge.

“We’re asking the city to do its own testing,” MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said.

Asked why, Apperson replied, “It’s their bridge.”

The 28th Street bridge findings had been startling.

Alerted by The Brew and Blue Water Baltimore, MDE inspected and found the orange-and-white chips floating in the Jones Falls and scattered across a biking and running trail, contain lead at 36 times the standard threshold level. The agency determined the city was in violation of state pollution laws.

(The findings also proved embarrassing: informed about the falling flakes by The Brew, a city DOT spokeswoman had initially dismissed the matter, saying there was no lead paint on this bridge and that there were “no lead paint concerns.”)

Pulverized lead paint bits, carried on shoes or pets’ paws and introduced into a home, could place a child who ingests them at risk of the well-known effects of lead paint poisoning – damage to the brain and nervous system.

Asked what was different with this second flaking city-owned bridge, which has been dropping chips on a public street and sidewalk, Apperson had no comment.

Blue Water Baltimore, concerned about the potential environmental and public health threat, tested the 28th Street Bridge chips that were raining down on the Jones Falls and Falls Road and, like MDE, found high lead levels in them.

The group has also tested flakes reported directly to them by the public, resulting so far in these two new confirmed locations:

• Orleans Street overpass/bridge: 27,300 mg/kg lead

•  I-95 overpass: 45,700 mg/kg lead

“Both bridges are shedding paint with hazardous levels of lead, and the paint also contains PCBs”  – Alice Volpitta, Blue Water Baltimore.

“Both bridges are shedding paint with hazardous levels of lead, and the paint also contains PCBs,” Blue Water Baltimore’s Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper Alice Volpitta said, in an email.

She noted that the standard threshold for lead paint is 5,000 mg/kg. This means the Orleans Street bridge flakes are more than five times the threshold and the I-95 overpass flakes are nine times the threshold.

The group is checking out another reported location at Falls Road and Clipper Mill Road.

No State Testing Planned

As with the earlier 28th Street inspection, MDE’s Feb. 18 inspection of the flakes falling from the Orleans Street Viaduct resulted in a pollution violation.

There was no press release, but a publicly available inspection report noted that the location was within 1,000 feet of the Jones Falls and that paint flakes were found in Guilford Avenue and Bath Street storm drains.

Instead of providing test results, the report said this:

“Orange paint chips (which are consistent in appearance with the paint from the West 28th Street overpass at Jones Falls known to contain lead as verified by laboratory analysis) are in a position likely to pollute waters of the State via storm drain inlets.”

As with the 28th Street bridge case, MDE said Baltimore was subject to a fine (without specifying the amount) and ordered the city to “remove all paint chips from the ground and storm drain inlets.”

But in this instance, Baltimore was instructed to “manage the material as hazardous waste” unless it can submit test results “showing the absence of lead to MDE.”

City transportation officials – asked by The Brew if they will test the paint flakes from the Orleans overpass and what other actions they plan to take to safeguard the public – have not responded.

Neither city nor state officials indicate they have any plan to proactively survey bridges to identify any that may be shedding lead paint flakes.

Asked also if there are plans to proactively survey bridges in Baltimore or elsewhere in Maryland to identify flaking lead paint, neither city nor state officials have indicated they plan to do so.

• How Connecticut handled the release of lead paint flakes from its bridges (2/24/26)

It’s a stark contrast from what happened in Connecticut in the winter of 2023, when “thermal shock resulting from the extreme temperature changes” caused a sudden shedding of lead paint from bridges across the state.

“In mid-February 2023, CT Department of Transportation inspectors reported seeing paint chips deposited beneath an elevated section of I-84 in Hartford. A comprehensive look at all of DOT’s painted steel bridges was completed over the ensuing days,” according to a description of the state response by the Connecticut governor’s office.

“Fallen paint chips were observed state-wide at 281 bridge sites. Preliminary testing confirmed that the paint chips contained lead,” the document said. “On February 17, 2023, DOT Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto declared a statewide emergency condition that needed immediate attention to ensure the safety of the public.”

Officials explained to the public that while lead-based paint was banned in the U.S. for residential uses in 1978, its use for bridges and industrial structures was allowed for many years after that.

Who’s Responsible?

Asked whether MDE plans to test paint flakes falling on the Halethorpe community, MDE has not responded.

If testing confirmed high lead levels, could the state itself be found in violation, presuming the overpass is owned and maintained by a state agency – the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) or the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration?

MDE has not answered that question either.

Neither city nor state health officials have released statements or advisories about the health risks of the falling flakes.

Blue Water Baltimore’s Barbara Johnson, who collected the flake samples in Halethorpe, said she spotted them not just around the railroad tracks near the MARC station, but on the roadway and grass along Arbutus Avenue, as well as residential areas around Potomac Avenue.