Tomorrow the Board of Estimates is scheduled to “note” that the city spent $20,000 this year to clean up hazardous lead paint chips at three city-owned bridges.

Board documents show this “emergency procurement” agreement covers a period that started four months after The Brew first reported in February the highly toxic reddish-orange flakes littering the ground.

The agreement with A2Z Environmental Group, LLC covered the period from June 1 to September 30, 2026.

How much of the material was removed?

We visited the area under the bridges last week.

It was apparent that A2Z removed most of the toxic flakes that had carpeted the ground under the 28th Street Bridge, fell upon the Streetcar Museum tracks and littered the Jones Falls Trail used by joggers walkers and bike riders.

But a small, not insignificant amount of lead paint remains.

Under the 29th Street Bridge near the Potts & Callahan yard, for example, The Brew easily found in the grass along Falls Road a scattering of small pieces and even some that were longer than two inches.

Down the steep slope leading to the Jones Falls waterway, more orange flakes could be seen in the grass, on the rocks and submerged in the stream.

Also obvious to the naked eye: Peeling lead paint remains throughout the girders and other substructure of the 28th Street Bridge as well as the two other bridges known to be shedding paint flakes.

What’s more, all three bridge structures appear just as rusty as they did in February, when tests confirmed they had dropped flakes with alarmingly high levels of lead:

• 28th Street Bridge – 180,000 mg/kg, or 36 times the standard limit, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

• JFX Exit 8 Off-Ramp Bridge over Jones Falls and Clipper Mill Road – 63,500 mg/kg, or over 12 times the standard limit, according to Blue Water Baltimore.

• Orleans Street Bridge downtown – 27,300 mg/kg, or more than five times the standard limit, according to Blue Water Baltimore.

Lead paint is known to cause brain damage in children – and a host of neurological and other medical problems in adults – if ingested or inhaled.

In August, The Brew asked Baltimore Department of Transportation if there are plans to remediate these bridges before this winter when cold weather might cause another flake-out. (This would involve using safe measures to scrape and remove the existing lead paint and then repaint the bridge metal.)

A DOT spokesperson said they were looking into the matter, but have not provided a solid answer.

We asked the same question of MDOT officials.

State Highway Administration spokeswoman Shanteé Felix said efforts are underway to complete painting on 30 Maryland bridges, identified as likely to contain lead paint, before the end of 2026.

None of the bridges are in the city, she indicated. Eight of them are in Baltimore County, including the so-called “Triple Bridges” of the I-70/I-695 Interchange in Woodlawn and the I-70 bridges over Rolling Road.

“The work will ensure the bridges are protected and will perform in accordance with current safety and environmental standards,” she said.

TV Hill Paint Flakes

The bridges aren’t the only structures that have been dropping toxic lead paint chips onto the city.

In 2021, a botched painting job on Baltimore’s television tower on TV Hill sent a shower of toxic lead paint chips onto the Woodberry residents below, as well as small businesses and a playground.

In August, the city of Baltimore joined the residents’ class action lawsuit as a co-plaintiff.

Baltimore signed on to the suit “to ensure that the defendants clean up the hazardous materials that they spread, not only on city-owned properties but in our neighborhoods,” City Solicitor Ebony Thompson was quoted saying.

While the litigation plays out, the neighborhood remains in public health limbo.

Today, five years after the incident, no one – neither the city, nor the state, nor the television tower owners – has fully remediated the area,  the lawyers who brought the class action complaint say.