Fly ash expert hired for shopping center

To protect the environment and ease community worries, the developer of a shopping center on a controversial dump site in Gambrills has hired a fly ash expert to help guide construction.

Besides announcing the hiring, Brian Gibbons, president of Greenburg Gibbons Commercial, also provided a few further details last night about the stores that will join Wegmans, Target and the Cobb movie theater in the Village at Waugh Chapel South.

The company has hired Barbara E. Cook, a former Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. consultant who helped the utility company handle fly ash deposited along Solley Road in Pasadena in the mid 1990s, Mr. Gibbons told about 75 people attending the required public hearing held at the original Village at Waugh Chapel in Gambrills.

From 1995 and until 2007, BGE, and later Constellation Energy Group, dumped fly ash into a pit at a surface mine off of Evergreen Road, which is now the site of the proposed shopping center.

County and state officials have linked fly ash - the fine, powdery gray byproduct of burning coal in power plants - to a cocktail of hazardous metals like beryllium and arsenic found in groundwater in the area.

Residents who live near the site are concerned that the shopping center construction could exacerbate the contamination problem or blow fly ash into the air when the development is built.

"I'm as concerned as you are to make sure that the fly ash is handled properly and we construct it with guidelines that ensure that there are no further problems as a result of fly ash from us. Again, I'm going to own that site with fly ash, and I am going to make sure it is done properly," Mr. Gibbons said.

To stop the contamination, a waterproof cap will placed over the fly ash pit on the 88-acre site, which will boast 600,000 square feet of retail space, 110,000 square feet of offices, and 200 homes when completed.

In addition, to help control the amount of airborne fly ash during the construction process, builders will use a "crusting agent" to keep it inert. And, trenches for utility lines will be refilled the same day they are dug, limiting the substance's exposure to the elements, he said.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has said it is generally safe to build over fly ash landfills if building standards are followed.

"Several studies over the past 15 years have shown that the use of (fly ash) in construction projects has resulted in little to no impact on groundwater and surface water quality, but some precautions are necessary," according to an EPA document.

Nor does fly ash pose an airborne risk to the general public but it could be a concern for construction workers.

"Air inhalation of dust from (fly ash) is primarily a worker safety issue. Nevertheless, proper precautions should be taken to protect the public form dusting during delivery and construction," the EPA document said.

New stores

As for what stores will be part of the new shopping center, Wegman's, a 16-screen Cobb movie theater and a Target store have signed leases for the new center and more well-known stores are negotiating leases, Mr. Gibbons said.

He wouldn't name specific businesses, but said the company is talking to "very well-known" sporting, electronic, household good, pet and shoe stores.

"A well-known home store is Bed, Bath & Beyond," he said.

The project could also include five full-service restaurants as well as a few fast-food shops, he said.

Civic groups in the Crofton area are worried about the amount of traffic the new shopping center would create. Not only would an influx of cars make it more difficult to get to the store, it will make it more dangerous for customers and workers to get there by foot.

Mr. Gibbons sad he has talked to state and county transportation officials and members of the Greater Crofton Council about adding two pedestrian crosswalks on Route 3. Nothing is final, but he said he wants them placed at Waugh Chapel and Johns Hopkins roads.

Madonna Brennan, chairman of the GCC's transportation committee, said that the crosswalks would be level with the street - they would not be pedestrian bridges - and would have electronic crossing signals.

However, adding the crosswalks could have an impact on other parts of the roads because streetlights would have to be timed differently to accommodate pedestrians.

The development has preliminary site plan approval and will likely have grading permits by the end of this year. The entire project could open by fall of 2010.

Mr. Gibbon's Owings Mills-based company built the original Village at Waugh Chapel and is currently one of the companies building the not-yet-finished Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole, a mixed-use development with condominiums, a Whole Foods grocery store, a Target and high-end restaurants.

The Target is scheduled to open there on Oct. 12.