Pollution and Our Community

Understanding the Sources. Addressing the Combined Impacts.

Brandywine is home to and surrounded by facilities and activities that can affect the air we breathe, the water we rely on, and the places where we live, work, and play. Each site has its own operations, permits, and potential impacts. Residents also deserve to understand what happens when those impacts are experienced together.

Pollution concerns may include air emissions, dust, truck traffic, noise, stormwater runoff, and other effects associated with industrial operations and development. The type and extent of an impact depend on the facility, its operations, and the conditions in the surrounding community.

BTB Coalition works to bring attention to these concerns by sharing information, following permit applications and regulatory actions, and encouraging residents to participate in decisions that affect their neighborhoods.

Our focus is on the combined impacts and compounding burdens experienced by the community, along with the need for monitoring, meaningful public participation, and accountability.

Brandywine deserves clear information, responsible operations, and a voice in every decision that affects our health and quality of life.

Explore the individual facility pages to learn more about each site and the questions facing our community.

Pollutant Facilities

Brandywine Elion Non-Hyper DATA CENTERS / Logistics Centers — Project

Large-scale logistics/industrial development reference. Public planning sources describe Elion Logistics Park as a master-planned industrial park with warehouse/distribution development. Included to examine newer logistics-scale land use and the non-hyperscale data/logistics framing.

DIESEL / MOBILE-SOURCE: Very high diesel/mobile-source relevance: tractor-trailers, delivery fleets, yard tractors, service vehicles, construction equipment, idling, trailer staging, and dock activity; assess exhaust, noise, road wear, safety, and interaction with US 301/MD 5.

Brandywine Reclamation & Recycling

Newly added facility at the same McKendree Road address identified for the prior Chaney Enterprises location. Include as a distinct tour reference so MDE can clarify current operations, permits, material streams, environmental controls, and any relationship to earlier mining/aggregate activity at the site.

DIESEL / MOBILE-SOURCE: Reclamation and recycling operations may involve heavy-duty trucks, loaders, material-handling equipment, and other diesel-powered machinery. Tour observations should document truck movements, idling, diesel exhaust, dust, noise, roadway wear, and interactions with community traffic. Facility-specific truck counts should be confirmed from permits or operating records rather than estimated.

Neale Drive, LLC / Hawkins Management, LLC

Existing fill operation; Hawkins Management submitted a permit application for a waste concrete crushing/screening plant.

DIESEL / MOBILE-SOURCE: High truck relevance: inbound/outbound fill, concrete and material hauling; potential additional diesel exhaust, fugitive dust, noise, road wear, turning movements, and safety impacts.

Middle Concrete & Trucking, Inc.

Public business and motor-carrier records identify Middle Concrete & Trucking, Inc. at 14306 Neale Drive, within the same Neale Drive industrial area as the Hawkins Management / Neale Drive fill and proposed concrete crushing-screening activity. The apparent proximity raises a question as to whether Middle Concrete is a separate parcel/operator, a tenant or related business, or part of the same broader industrial site. What are these businesses permitted facility, parcel, permit, or operational relationships.

MDE / Tour Relevance: Concrete and trucking activity adds to the same cumulative concerns already identified for the Neale Drive area: diesel truck traffic, material hauling, fugitive dust, stormwater, noise, roadway wear, and cumulative industrial activity.

Brandywine DRMO Superfund SiteEarth — Brandywine Soil Treatment & Recycling Facility

EPA Superfund site: an approximately eight-acre former Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO) property. From 1943–1987, U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force installations used the property to store wastes and excess government materials. EPA reports hazardous-chemical contamination of soil and groundwater; the site was added to the National Priorities List in 1999. Cleanup includes groundwater and soil remedies, institutional controls, groundwater-use restrictions, and ongoing PFAS characterization.

COMMUNITY / TITLE VI CONTEXT: BTB Coalition identifies the Brandywine DRMO site as part of the cumulative-burden record underlying its Title VI advocacy and correspondence seeking facilitated resolution. Use this stop to connect the legacy federal contamination record to the broader community history of environmental-justice and civil-rights advocacy.

DIESEL / MOBILE-SOURCE: Historic and remedial activity has involved trucks, excavation equipment, hauling, treatment-system service vehicles, and other diesel-powered equipment. Tour lens: legacy contamination + remediation traffic/equipment + cumulative exposure.

Cedarville Road Sludge Lagoon / Regional Waste-Management Reference

Community-identified sludge-lagoon / residual-waste reference for the Cedarville Road corridor. The precise active lagoon location, ownership, and compliance record should be confirmed before final publication. For regional context, Clean Earth operates a soil treatment and recycling facility at 16301 Gardner Road that accepts materials including sludges/solids, contaminated soils, stormwater-management pond sediment, topsoil, aggregate-based construction and demolition debris, and other earthen media. Clean Earth identifies chemical fixation and aggregate production as treatment platforms and lists a capacity of up to 10,000 tons per day.

Aggregate Industries — operations on both sides of McKendree Road

Active aggregate/mining reference showing the concentration of extraction and processing activity on both sides of McKendree Road.

DIESEL / MOBILE-SOURCE: High truck relevance: aggregate haul trucks, loaders, heavy equipment, deliveries, exhaust, road dust, noise, turning movements, and roadway wear.

Gaslight III Surface Mine — SE-22007

Approved expansion of an existing surface mine previously associated with SE-4402 / SE-4651; mining, water, sediment, reclamation, and woodland considerations.

DIESEL / MOBILE-SOURCE: High truck relevance: aggregate/material hauling plus heavy diesel mining equipment; expansion may extend or intensify haul-route and mobile-source burdens.

Clean Earth — Brandywine Soil Treatment & Recycling Facility

Documented regional waste/soil-processing facility. Clean Earth identifies this location as a soil treatment and recycling facility that accepts materials including sludges/solids, contaminated soils, stormwater-management pond sediment, potable-water-treatment residuals, aggregate-based construction and demolition debris, and other earthen media. The company identifies chemical fixation and aggregate production as treatment platforms and lists capacity up to 10,000 tons/day.

MDE LENS: Waste acceptance • soil treatment • air/dust • crushing/screening • groundwater • surface water • stormwater/runoff • material tracking • transportation • permit compliance • cumulative burden.

DIESEL / MOBILE-SOURCE: High truck and heavy-equipment relevance. Incoming waste/soil loads, outgoing recycled aggregate/fill, loaders, material-handling equipment, crushing/screening operations, service vehicles, and associated diesel exhaust, fugitive dust, noise, roadway wear, turning movements, idling, and safety impacts. No unverified daily truck-count estimate is assigned.

North Keys Community Park — Return Observation Point / Lunch & Debrief

Return to the community receptor for working lunch and MDE regulatory debrief; connect observations across air, land, water, mining, waste, logistics, transportation, and public participation.

DIESEL / MOBILE-SOURCE: Close the loop on cumulative diesel/mobile-source burden: trucks, haul routes, dust, noise, emissions, roadway impacts, and proximity to people.