On January 5, 2026 the County Council of Baltimore County unanimously passed Bill no. 3-26 which prevents the county from approving development plans or zoning petitions for data centers until January 1, 2027 or 90 days after the Planning Board submits the report required by this legislation. The Planning Board will hold a public hearing …
On January 12th, 2026, Gunpowder RIVERKEEPER®, Gunpowder Valley Conservancy, Mad About Mud, and Sierra Club’s Greater Baltimore Group published a press release to inform their constituents of the actions the groups have taken in order to inform the state’s decision-making process for the Days Cove Rubble Landfill discharge permit and lease. The letter is reproduced …
In Jeremy Cox’s December 9th 2025 article in The Bay Journal “Maryland downplays race, ethnicity in its environmental justice scoring system” Cox analyzes the changes and reactions to the changes the Maryland Department of the Environment made to their Enviroscreen 3.0 tool compared to previous versions. The tool is designed to help analyze the disparities …
On January 5th, 2026 Baltimore County Councilman Pat Young proposed Bill 3-26 which would put a one-year freeze on data center construction in Baltimore County in response to residents’ concerns over a proposed 42-acre, 150-megawatt data center in Woodlawn. According to John Lee’s article in WYPR, The Catonsville Democrat’s legislation, which he introduced Monday night, …
The Gunpowder RIVERKEEPER staff attended the webinar on Thursday, September 25th to gain an understanding of how the Maryland Department of the Environment’s updated Enviroscreen tool can help us analyze community data. The tool allows for an easy comparison between the demographics as provided by census data and the Environmental Justice (EJ) score as defined …