The Swann Park Task Force, convened by the Baltimore City Health Department in May 2007, at the request of Mayor Sheila Dixon, has released its first report.
In this report, the Task Force addresses the events of the spring of 1976 – when Swann Park was briefly closed for health concerns and then re-opened after the Kepone Task Force, a blue-ribbon panel of federal, state, and local health officials, found no hazard.
The first of four reports investigates why the arsenic levels at Swann Park were not recognized or addressed decades earlier. Following reports will review testing subsequent to the Kepone Task Force of 1976, the legal framework for reporting, disclosure, and cleanup from 1976 to the
present and finally, recommendations on changes in law or enforcement needed to avert similar
situations in the future.
Swann Park Task Force members include:
• Dr. Lynn R. Goldman, a pediatrician and Professor of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health
• Heather A. Moore, President of the Federal Hill South Neighborhood Association
• George Nilson, Baltimore City Solicitor and former Deputy Attorney General for the
State of Maryland
• Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, Commissioner of Health for Baltimore City
• Stuart Simms, partner in the law firm of Brown, Goldstein, and Levy
The Swann Park Task Force report and supporting documents are online at
www.baltimorehealth.org
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On April 19, 2007, on the recommendation of the Baltimore City Health Department and the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Baltimore City Recreation and Parks Department closed Swann Park in South Baltimore. Test results indicated elevated levels of arsenic in the soil at the park. Updates to this developing situation will be posted on this site.