3 injured in explosion at South Baltimore wastewater treatment plant

Three contract workers were injured at the Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant in South Baltimore in an explosion that may have been caused by electrical work, officials said.

Two Department of Public Works contractors were in critical condition and another was in serious condition after Tuesday afternoon’s explosion, Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace said at a news conference.

“There may have been some type of a power arc or a fuse that blew, but, at either rate, it happened with a lot of energy,” Wallace said.

Officials will investigate the actual cause of the explosion once Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. crews de-energize the plant and deem it safe to do so, Wallace said.

Matthew Garbark, the city’s public works director, said the explosion occurred on a side of the plant where crews were working to expand electrical capacity. The incident won’t disrupt wastewater or water treatment, he said.

“There are backup generators that are working. We are working to get other generators on the place. The plant will be able to function at this time. Chlorination is still operational, so wastewater is being treated,” Garbark said.

Baltimore City firefighters were called just after 1 p.m. Tuesday to the 3500 block of Asiatic Avenue for reports of an explosion, department spokesperson Veobia Akilo said.

The Maryland Department of the Environment said earlier Tuesday that it was aware of the explosion and inspectors were on their way to the location.

BGE said it responded to the plant at the request of the Baltimore City Fire Department, but that BGE equipment was not involved.

Tucked into an industrial part in South Baltimore, the treatment facility sits on 69 acres of the Patapsco River and serves roughly 450,000 people by removing pollutants from their wastewater, according to the DPW. About 180 people work at the facility.

Baltimore’s wastewater treatment plants have seen similar incidents in recent years.

An explosion in September 2023 damaged the facilities of Synagro Technologies on the campus of Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant, the larger of Baltimore’s two sewage treatment plants.

That same facility caught fire again last September. No injuries were reported in either incident.

Synagro also operates out of the Patapsco plant, but in a statement Tuesday a company spokesperson said that the latest explosion didn’t happen at one of its facilities and that no Synagro employees were injured.

Based in Middle River, Synagro has contracted at Baltimore’s treatment plants since the 1990s and plays an essential role in plant operations, processing thousands of tons of solid waste a year into a cheap fertilizer product. But in recent months, Synagro has blamed flammable contaminants in the city’s Back River waste stream for issues with its equipment.

Rather than processing on-site, the company has resorted to shipping Back River waste out of state at a cost to the city of millions of dollars a month.

Reporter Adam Willis contributed to this story.