Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown and environmental regulators have reached a $2.2 million settlement in a yearslong lawsuit against the owner of a TV tower and its contractor after the tower rained lead paint flakes onto a North Baltimore community.

Officials outlined the agreement Thursday at Hooper and Rockrose Park in the Woodberry community, where a playground in the shadow of Baltimore’s TV Hill was among the areas showered with lead paint over a three-week period in 2022.

Skyline Tower Painting performed its work on the candelabra-style television tower, a 1,000-foot structure with three spires, between May 28 and June 21, 2022. The tower is operated by Television Tower Inc., a company jointly run by local stations WBAL, WJZ and WMAR.

But the attorney general said Thursday that Skyline wasn’t accredited to perform lead abatement work in Baltimore — something TTI should have known.

“The children who play on this playground don’t ask to be part, and they certainly didn’t, of an environmental enforcement case,” Brown said, “but what happened here made them one.”

Located on Malden Avenue, the red-painted tower is a fixture of the North Baltimore skyline and stands over a residential and commercial community approximately 400 yards from the Jones Falls.

The Maryland Department of the Environment sued TTI and Skyline in 2023, alleging that the companies had endangered the health of children by neglecting to use containment measures to collect waste generated from their work, an omission documented by nearby residents at the time.

Pressure washing and high winds may have spread paint chips across a half-mile radius, covering a child care center, Hooper and Rockrose Park, a college athletic field and more than 80 residential properties, according to the state’s complaint.

A potent neurotoxin, lead can irreversibly damage cognitive development and is especially hazardous for children and pregnant women.

TTI and Skyline did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the settlement.

Brown said Thursday that TTI knew as early as 2012 that its tower on TV Hill contained lead. An inspection seven years later found peeling paint throughout the tower.

Under the settlement, the two companies will enter a consent decree and agree to pay $1.1 million into the state’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, $660,000 to the Clean Water Fund and $440,000 to the State Hazardous Substance Control Fund.

In addition to these civil penalties, the settlement requires TTI to repaint its tower by June 30. The company must also perform new soil testing in the area and create a public hotline for residents to report health concerns.

Skyline Tower Painting, a Nebraska-based business, will be permanently banned from painting or performing lead abatement work in Maryland, Brown said.

Skyline and its president, Christopher Mecklem, pleaded guilty in December to separate criminal charges and agreed to pay a $100,000 fine for the environmental violations, to be divided between Maryland’s Clean Water Fund and Hazardous Substance Control Fund.

“It’s not just about accountability and enforcement,” Maryland Environmental Secretary Serena McIlwain said Thursday. It’s also about undoing these public health harms, “so that we can make sure that this community — the kids — can play without having to worry about picking up paint chips.”

The settlement comes as a nearby stretch of Baltimore, down Falls Road from Woodberry, has recently seen a shower of lead paint from a city-owned bridge that spans the Jones Falls, which flows through the heart of Baltimore and empties into the harbor.