The company has agreed to pause construction at the site due to environmental violations.
Sugarloaf Mountain (Photo from Sugarloaf Alliance)
Frederick, Md (KM) The Sugarloaf Alliance, a charitable organization with 450 members, is taking an interest in the violations of environmental regulations at the Quantum Loophole site in Adamstown. “The violation of environmental regulations that have gone on at the Quantum site should be the concern to every resident of Frederick County,” says Steve Black, the President of the Alliance.
Last week, Quantum Loophole agreed with the Maryland Department of the Environment to pause construction at the property located along Manor Woods Road. The site was once owned by Eastalco which processed aluminum, and that resulted in contamination of the groundwater and soil. . Black says when Eastalco closed the facility, it agreed with the MDE to put in perpetual agreements on what can be done at the site, and what construction could happen. “Quantum Loophole violated a number of those restrictions. The biggest one of which was dumping without testing groundwater from a contaminated site directly into Tuscarora Creek. And from there, it flows right into the Potomac {River};” Black says.
He says this should be a concern for everyone who receives their water from the Potomac River. “It should also be a concern for anybody that fishes in Tuscarora Creek, or in the Potomac near where Tuscarora Creek empties the Potomac River. It should be a big concern for anybody that swims in the river,’ says Black.
The Sugarloaf Alliance will be making sure that people are informed about the public health and safety risks from this dumping of contaminated water, according to Black. “The second thing we’re going to do is try to ensure the Quantum is held to every environmental standard that every other developer would be held to,” he says. “They shouldn’t get a pass on any of this.”
Quantum Loophole has plans to build data centers at the former Eastalco site.
Black says the property is an industrial site, and “industrial things are going to happen there. There’s nothing wrong with that.” He says it’s better placing this data centers on a “brownfield:” site rather than paving over a farm field or a forest. “Brownfields” are former industrial sites that need to be cleaned up before they can be redeveloped for a new business. Black says these sites come with some special environmental rules that developers must comply with. “You can’t just pretend the site is clean,” says Black.
By Kevin McManus