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Maryland’s largest known stockpile of scrap tires has been cleaned up.
MDE, in conjunction with the Maryland Environmental Service, removed 1.1 million scrap tires from the Garner property in the Brandywine area of Prince George’s County. The $10.5 million cleanup was completed under budget and eighteen months ahead of schedule.
The Garner property was one of the few remaining large scrap tire dumps in Maryland. MDE became aware of the tire stockpile in the mid 1980s. Scrap tires were dumped there from 1950 to 1975 into a series of ravines that cover about 15 acres and include environmentally sensitive wetlands. The ravines contain streams that empty into the Tom Walls Branch, a tributary of Spice Creek, which leads to the Patuxent River.
MDE administers Maryland’s scrap tire program. Scrap tires are a significant threat to the environment. They can be breeding grounds for Asian Tiger mosquitoes, which can carry diseases like West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis, and for rats, snakes, ticks and other carriers of disease. If they catch fire, they can emit soot into the air and dangerous oils into waterways.
For each new tire sold in Maryland, 80 cents is collected and deposited into Maryland’s Used Tire Cleanup and Recycling Fund. MDE administers the fund, which can be used to pay for the cleanup of “legacy” scrap tire sites in the State and to manage the collection, handling and recycling of scrap tires. Since the inception of the scrap tire program in 1992, more than 10.6 million tires from almost 950 sites have been cleaned up. The Maryland Environmental Service (MES) oversees the cleanup of the larger State-funded sites.
In 2005, the State Board of Public Works approved funding for the cleanup of the Garner site through the scrap tire fund. The 114-acre property had been a tobacco farm, and is still used for crops and as a tree nursery. MES and its contractors conducted an assessment and prepared a cleanup plan.
An MES video documents the cleanup and the challenges it presented. The cleanup required the building of temporary access roads and storage areas. Plans were developed to control sediment and erosion, preserve trees and restore the wetlands to pre-stockpile conditions. The tires were excavated from the site and then taken by tractor trailer to licensed disposal facilities.
The last of the tires were removed in spring 2012. An acre and a half of wetlands and 1.6 miles of stream corridor have been restored, and more than 8,000 native species trees have been planted.
Monitoring the growth of native trees and other vegetation planted at the site will continue for five years to ensure that the site stabilization and restoration efforts are successful.
For more information on this cleanup or on scrap tires, contact Abigail Pascual, Section Head, Scrap Tire Unit, at 410-537-3334 or Abigail.Pascual@maryland.gov.
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