Sun coverage: Arsenic in Swann Park

City may buy and demolish 7 homes

Baltimore is proposing to condemn and buy seven homes with arsenic pollution in their yards beside contaminated Swann Park as part of a large waterfront development.

Arsenic found high in Turf Valley

Citing arsenic levels that are 60 times higher than normal, Howard County's top health official called yesterday for mandatory comprehensive testing of land at the Turf Valley planned community in Ellicott City, where the owner has been trying for two decades to add more than 1,000 homes.

Allied kept mum on arsenic, report says

The Allied Chemical Company deliberately withheld test results three decades ago showing high arsenic levels in a South Baltimore park, a city task force concludes in a report released yesterday.

Report says tainted park soil is no risk -- unless you eat it

A federal report released yesterday concludes that playing on arsenic-tainted soil in South Baltimore's Swann Park is not likely to cause cancer or other illnesses, unless children eat the dirt.

Sun follow-up

Arsenic found in yards near plant site

Maryland's environmental agency has discovered high levels of arsenic in the yards of homes near a contaminated park in South Baltimore and has ordered a company to remove the poison.

'Is it even safe to live here?'

Harvey Leichling watched his 12-year-old son scramble after a baseball under a locked gate that barred the way into a city park and the ball fields on the other side.

Panel to study why tainted park stayed open 30 years

Mayor Sheila Dixon is forming a task force to investigate why Swann Park in South Baltimore remained open for 30 years despite studies showing high levels of arsenic in the soil there.

Sun follow-up

Toxic sites dot city's waterfront

Arsenic-laced Swann Park is one of several places along Baltimore's waterfront where carcinogenic wastes from long-closed Allied Chemical Co. plants are reappearing like ghosts from the city's industrial past.

Sun follow-up

'81 study identified arsenic

A Johns Hopkins researcher documented high levels of arsenic in a South Baltimore park more than 25 years ago and concluded the element was likely responsible for an unusually high cancer death rate in the neighborhood.