This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
3/9/2012
The National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) plans to work with various state and local health, transportation and planning agencies to conduct a health impact assessment of the proposed Baltimore-Washington Rail Intermodal Facility. CSX Transportation and the Maryland Department of Transportation are determining a site for the facility, which would be located on the Class I’s National Gateway corridor.
A nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting local health, NCHH plans to identify and compare the impacts of the intermodal terminal at several potential sites in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. region.
The facility’s potential health concerns include air and noise pollution, and substantial increases in local truck traffic, NCHH officials said in a prepared statement. The construction and operation of the terminal also could benefit health by creating local jobs and generating community tax revenue that supports services essential to health, they said. NCHH plans to host community forums on March 14, 19 and 21 to solicit input from residents on how the proposed facility might affect public health.
"Decisions about how goods are moved across the state and across the country are made every day, [and] only in a few instances are those decisions looked at through the lens of public health,” said NCHH Executive Director Rebecca Morley.