The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • A2

2 THE BALTIMORE SUN NEWS SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2019 Legislation aimed at removing lead- contaminated water from hundreds of school fountains passed unanimously on the General final day this week inweakened form. The Lead Reduction and Remediation Act, sponsored by Del. Jared Solomon, a Montgomery County Democrat, toughens standards on how much lead can be in a water to the lowest traceable amountandrequires thepublic reportingof positive test results. It also gives schools access to the $30 million Healthy School Facility Fund for remediation efforts for water outlets used for drinking or food preparation. But after some school systems com- plained that enough money for repairs, the bill was amended in the Senate to no longer mandate that schools must repair the lead-contaminated water outlets only that they must shut them off, Solomon said.

The bill also was amended to no longer require the replacement of lead-contam- inated school water fountains or faucets thatarenotcurrently inuse, suchas those in Baltimore schools that have been turnedoff for years. The legislation now states the intent that schools work to repair the lead-contam- inatedwater fountains. had a lot of concerns over the local school systems. think they all would be covered with the Healthy School Facility Fund. a step forward, but hopefully we getmore next year.We be playing with lead.

Parents their children drinking The legislation lowers the acceptable amount of lead in water from 20 parts per billion to no more than 5 parts per billion, the Food and Drug limit for lead in bottled water. Notice of elevated lead levels from testing must be sent to the state, sent to parents of students at affected Solomonarguedthat thepublic reportingof the toughened tests for lead will spark outcry formore repairs. advocates around the state are going to demand Solomon said. Sen. Cory V.McCray, a Baltimore Demo- crat, sponsored the Senate version of the bill.

State tests this year found elevated levels of lead in water from 519 school drinking water fountains or sinks across the state, including 229 inMontgomeryCounty, 67 in St. County, 58 in Anne Arundel County, 55 in Baltimore County and 48 in HowardCounty. Themajorityof schools inBaltimoreCity have relied on bottled water for a decade, following revelations about lead contam- ination that forced officials to ban children from drinking out of water fountains or sinks. bill was one of two anti-lead poisoning bills that passed the General Assembly this year. The legislature overwhelmingly passed the Maryland Healthy Children Act, spon- sored by Del.

Robbyn Lewis, a Baltimore Democrat. After a child tests positive for lead poisoning, bill would require the Maryland Department of the Environ- ment to conduct environmental investiga- tions to determine where the lead hazards that poisoned the child exist whether from chipping paint, toys, soil or other sources and then warn others about the danger. The bill has an estimated cost of about $1 million per year. will trigger faster action and it will help us remediate more Lewis said. housing stock will becomemore andmore free of lead.Wewant every child to be protected fromever being Lewis said she considers passage of her bill and a for children.

tough to see your bill get watered Lewis said of bill, never before has the state ofMaryland even made a commitment to getting that level of lead out of drinking fountains. still a breakthrough. He set the bar, and we can build on In 2017 alone, 2,049 Maryland children younger than 7 tested positive for lead poisoning including 789 kids from Baltimore. While Baltimore has the most children suffering from lead poisoning, other juris- dictions are not immune. In 2017, Prince County had more than 300 kids test positive for elevated lead levels, while Baltimore County had more than 200 positive tests.

RuthAnnNorton, president of theGreen Homes Initiative, called passage of the two bills steps to protect our children, our pregnant women and their She said bill will alert parents just how much lead is in their water. were telling people they were safe. But no safe level of Norton said. towardzero tolerance and Even with passage of the two bills, severalpiecesof anti-leadpoisoning legisla- tion failed thisGeneral Assembly session. Del.

Nick J.Mosby and Sen. Jill P. Carter, both Baltimore Democrats, unsuccessfully pushed for legislation that would permit lawsuits in Baltimore courts against lead paint manufacturers whether or not a specific product can be proved to have poisoned a specific person. Such legislation has been introduced and killed repeatedly in Annapolis over the past twodecades, in the face of industry opposition. Carter said the lead poisoning legislation that did pass this year is She argued the kids of Baltimore should have working water fountains in their schools and not need to resort to using bottledwater.

definitely progress, but not Carter said. not nearly sufficient. The bottom line is we still have children who are being poisoned. We still are not adequately holding slumlords ac- countable. And we still refuse to hold the lead paint companies luke.broadwater@baltsun.com twitter.com/lukebroadwater Bill aims to rid schools of bad water But legislation targeting lead mandate any repairs By Luke Broadwater The Baltimore Sun Six Baltimoremen have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and admitted their roles as members of the deadly Hillside Enterprise drug dealing ring, which operated for about 14 years in theCherryHill neighborhood.

Federal prosecutors are recommending sentencesbetween12and23years in federal prison for 27-year-old Keenan Lawson, 25-year-old Michael Evans, 26-year-old Kevin Horsey, 28-year-old Stevie Lawson; 31-year-old Terrell Luster; and 27- year-old Caesar Rice, the U.S. Office for the District of Mary- land announcedFriday. All six men admitted that they participa- ted in, or were present for the shootings of individuals primarily believed to be rival gangmembers, according to a news release. The six men join 13 other Hillside Enterprise members to have pleaded guilty to the racketeering conspiracy eight of whom have since been sentenced to be- tween10 and 30 years in federal prison. Hillside Enterprise was connected with numerous robberies, shootings, beatings, murders and other violence meant to intimidatepeoplewhowould interferewith the narcotics trafficking, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors say the Hillside members also committed violence against one another. As members of Hillside Enterprise, the six men admitted they distributed powder and crack cocaine, heroin, oxycodone and marijuana in theCherryHill neighborhood, including in the Cherry Hill Shopping Center, and in areas ofWest and Southwest Baltimore, according to federal prosecutors. HillsidemembersusedseveralCherryHill homes, including one in the 400 block of Roundview Road and an apartment in the 2300 block of Terra Firma Road, to cut and package their drugs with food coloring and distinctive topped vials. Prosecutors say the sixmen pocketed the profits from their drug sales or used themoney to buy firearms and expandtheirnarcotics traffickingoperations. terrorand death to Cherry Hill neighbor- hood with guns and U.S.

Attorney Robert K. Hur said in the release. stateandlocal lawenforcementarecommit- ted to working together to target those responsible for the most violence in Balti- more City. These defendants admitted that they were part of an organized criminal enterprise with leaders and members who dealt drugs and committed violent crimes usingguns.Nowtheyface lengthysentences in federal there is U.S. District Judge George L.

Russell III has scheduled sentencing for Evans, Luster, Rice and Horsey for July 12 and for Keenan andLawsonon July19. Two other alleged Hillside members 27-year-old Travis Eugene Alewine and 32-year-old Deaven Raeshawn Cherry are still being sought by police, according to officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Baltimore field division. The ATF is offering a reward of $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of either Alewine or Cherry. Both are charged federally with drug and racketeering conspiracies, including mur- ders, and are considered armed and danger- ous. Police asked anyonewith information to contact ATF at 888-ATF-TIPS, text contactATFvia themobile app.

twitter.com/LillianEReed Six men plead guilty for roles in drug ring By Lillian Reed The Baltimore Sun Theownerof awaste-to-energyplant in southwest Baltimore is suing the Balti- more County government, saying it re- neged on a contractual agreement to send anannualminimumamountof trash to the facility. In a lawsuit filed Thursday in the Baltimore County Circuit Court, Wheela- brator representatives wrote that a reduc- tion in the amount of trash sent to the incinerator is a breach of a contract, damages currently estimated to exceed over According to the lawsuit, Baltimore County signed a contract in 2011 agreeing to send 215,000 tons of waste per year to Wheelabrator inexchange forprice reduc- tions. In 2018, the county delivered 65,813 fewer tons of waste than required under the contract, anddid not deliver enough in the first months of 2019 to be on track to meet the target, the lawsuit alleges. Wheelabrator is asking for damages exceed BaltimoreCountyspokesmanT.J. Smith said the county does not comment on pending litigation.

The garbage incinerator has faced scrutiny in recent years after a Baltimore Sun investigation found it has collected millions in green energy subsidies, despite the fact that it is a major source of air pollution. city council passed air quality legislation in February that Wheelabrator officials have said could force the facility to shut down. Baltimore County trash accounts for about of the waste stream burned at the incinerator, located next to Interstate 95 off Russell Street. The county said previously it sent 280,000 tons of trash to the plant in 207 and would divert that to Eastern Sanitary Landfill inWhiteMarsh if the incinerator closed. Wheelabrator is a subsidiary of Waste Management a Chicago-based giant in the trash industry.

Wheelabrator op- erates about 25 waste-to-energy plants around the country. twitter.com/libsolomon Wheelabrator suit alleges breach of contract Claims Baltimore County meet trash minimum By Libby Solomon Towson Times Wheelabrator claims Baltimore County sent 65,813 fewer tons of waste than required. LLOYD SUN Louie, Louie! Bowie Baysox mascot Louie greets Belvedere Elementary School fourth-grade students on the baseball diamond on Friday. Bowie Baysox staff and Louie visited to provide tickets to the minor league games that were earned by students as part of a reading incentive program. PAUL W.

GAZETTE.