A Tower Full of Poison, A Community Full of Trust

Television Tower, Inc. has owned a 1,300-foot television tower in Baltimore since 1959. That tower was coated in red lead-based paint during its original construction. 2.5 tons of it. According to federal court documents, TTI knew for decades that the paint existed on the tower and knew that it would deteriorate over time, chipping and peeling as lead paint always does.

In 2022, TTI contracted with Skyline Tower Painting, Inc., a Colorado corporation based in Nebraska, to clean the structure using a process called hydroblasting, which uses extremely high-pressure water to strip surfaces. The problem: TTI never bothered to check whether Skyline was certified, licensed, or trained to handle lead paint removal safely. The answer, it turned out, was that Skyline was none of those things.

Neither company obtained the required permits. Neither notified the Maryland Department of the Environment before work began. According to the court’s account of the complaint, both TTI and Skyline knew that hydroblasting lead paint was “inherently reckless and dangerous, presenting a high risk of harm to the public.” They started anyway.

The Contamination Begins

Hydroblasting began on May 28, 2022. Lead paint chips and dust immediately began dislodging from the structure and traveling. Wind, gravity, and thermal dynamics carried the contamination outward in every direction. According to court documents, the spread covered at least 4,000 feet from the tower in every direction, an area containing 2,785 properties.

By June 22, 2022, just weeks into the project, the Maryland Department of the Environment had already recorded 35 residents reporting lead paint chips on their properties. Chips showed up at a grocery store. They showed up in yards and on driveways. Between November 2022 and February 2023, the properties of the eight named plaintiffs each tested positive for the presence of lead paint chips and dust.

Municipal authorities eventually issued a stop-work order due to the lack of proper permits. Hydroblasting stopped on August 17, 2022, after running nearly three months. The damage to the surrounding community was already done.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What Can’t Be Cleaned Up with a Check

The court record describes a community that woke up one day to find red paint chips scattered across their neighborhood like toxic confetti. They found them at a grocery store. They found them in their yards, on their driveways, on surfaces where children play. For any parent in that 4,000-foot radius, the discovery was not an inconvenience; it was a reckoning with the knowledge that their family had been breathing and touching lead dust for weeks without knowing it.

Lead poisoning does not announce itself. It accumulates. In children, even low-level lead exposure causes irreversible neurological damage: reduced IQ, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and lifelong developmental harm. The plaintiffs’ complaint acknowledged this reality directly, expressing concern “about their health and that of their neighbors due to the hazards posed by lead paint, especially for children.” The families inside that 4,000-foot ring did not consent to this experiment. They were simply residents of Baltimore, living their lives beneath a tower they trusted was being managed responsibly by the company that owned it.

The Contamination Followed Them Home

When a property tests positive for lead paint contamination, that information does not stay private. Maryland law requires sellers to disclose known lead hazards to potential buyers. Every family whose home tested positive between November 2022 and February 2023 now carries that disclosure requirement permanently, a scarlet letter on their most significant financial asset, placed there by a corporation that chose to skip permits and hire an unqualified contractor. The court record confirms the plaintiffs raised this concern explicitly: their property values are threatened because they must disclose the lead exposure to any potential buyers.

Remediation is neither quick nor cheap. Professional lead abatement requires certified contractors, containment protocols, and post-remediation testing. The cost to restore a contaminated yard or exterior surface can run into the thousands of dollars per property. The plaintiffs in this case sought injunctive relief specifically in the form of remediation, meaning they want TTI and Skyline to pay for the cleanup. But the companies spent two years fighting in federal court over jurisdiction rather than remedying the harm they caused. For the families waiting, every month of legal maneuvering is another month living with the contamination.

They Knew, and They Did It Anyway

Perhaps the most devastating detail in the entire record is this: the court documents confirm TTI knew by the 1980s that the tower was coated in lead-based paint. The company knew the paint would deteriorate over time. The company knew that hydroblasting would dislodge lead paint in a manner that was “inherently reckless and dangerous.” None of this knowledge produced a change in behavior. TTI contracted with an uncertified company, skipped the permits, skipped the notification to environmental authorities, and let the blasting run for nearly three months while a neighborhood below bore the consequences.

There is a specific kind of betrayal embedded in this story. Baltimore residents living near that tower had no reason to believe they were at risk. They did not know TTI had decades of knowledge about the deteriorating lead paint coating that tower. They did not know that the company hired to clean it lacked the credentials to do so safely. They did not know that no permits had been filed and no environmental agency had been told. The information asymmetry was total. One side held all the knowledge and all the power to prevent the harm. They chose profit and convenience over the safety of the people living 4,000 feet below.

Legal Receipts: What the Documents Actually Say

These are direct quotes and factual statements from the federal court record. These are the facts that went before a federal appeals court and were not disputed.

“A total of 2.5 tons of [red] lead-based paint was applied to the TV Tower during its construction in 1959, and TTI has known for decades that the tower was covered in lead-based paint.” Joint Appendix, as cited by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

“TTI also knew that the paint would deteriorate over time, as it has, including chipping and peeling.” Joint Appendix, as cited by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

“TTI and Skyline knew that hydroblasting would dislodge and disperse the lead paint in a manner that was inherently reckless and dangerous, presenting a high risk of harm to the public.” Joint Appendix, J.A. 13–14, as cited by the Fourth Circuit

“TTI failed to verify that Skyline was appropriately accredited, licensed, or trained to perform the work—which, it turns out, it was not. Nor did Defendants obtain the appropriate permit or notify the Maryland Department of the Environment before undertaking the work.” Fourth Circuit Opinion, citing the complaint record

“The paint chips and dust were carried by gravity, thermal dynamics and wind away from the TV Tower onto other real property, spreading for at least 4000 feet in every direction.” Joint Appendix, J.A. 15, as cited by the Fourth Circuit

“The Maryland Department of the Environment reported that, as of June 22, 2022, thirty-five residents had reported finding lead paint chips on their properties.” Fourth Circuit Opinion, Footnote 3

“TTI is thus not a peripheral player, but rather is one of two defendants, both of whom are central to the allegations in the complaint.” Fourth Circuit Opinion, affirming the district court’s finding

“The district court concluding that ‘if Plaintiffs meet their burdens as to Counts I and II, TTI’s liability could meet (or exceed) that of Skyline.'” Goldberg v. Skyline Tower Painting Inc., District Court, as cited by the Fourth Circuit

The Scale of Contamination: By the Numbers

What 4,000 Feet Actually Looks Like

A 4,000-foot radius is roughly three-quarters of a mile in every direction from the tower. That is a circle wide enough to swallow multiple city neighborhoods. The 2,785 properties inside that zone represent real families, real businesses, real schools, and real playgrounds. The 35 early reports were just the residents who noticed the red chips quickly enough to report them. The full extent of contamination across all 2,785 properties was documented months later, between November 2022 and February 2023, through property testing.

Societal Impact Mapping

Public Health

Lead is a neurotoxin. There is no safe level of lead exposure for children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lead paint chips and dust, once dispersed into a residential environment, can be ingested directly, tracked into homes on shoes, embedded in soil, and become airborne again with disturbance. The 4,000-foot contamination zone in Baltimore included residential properties where children live and where people grow food in gardens.

The complaint specifically named concern for children’s health as a primary driver of the lawsuit. The plaintiffs stated they were “concerned about their health and that of their neighbors due to the hazards posed by lead paint, especially for children.” This is not abstract. Lead poisoning in children causes permanent reductions in cognitive function, increases in behavioral disorders, and developmental delays that compound over a lifetime. The families in this neighborhood did not choose to accept these risks. The risks were imposed on them by a company that prioritized cost and convenience over safety.

Property-level lead testing did not begin until November 2022, roughly six months after the contamination started. During those six months, families lived, children played, and people went about daily life inside a contaminated zone. The lag between the start of hydroblasting in May 2022 and the formal property testing in late 2022 represents months of unmitigated exposure for which no immediate health monitoring or warning was publicly issued based on the record in this case.

Environmental Degradation

Lead does not break down. Once deposited into soil, it persists for decades. A neighborhood yard contaminated with lead paint dust becomes a long-term environmental hazard that outlasts the legal case, the settlement, and the news cycle. The court documents describe contamination carried by “gravity, thermal dynamics and wind,” meaning the lead particles dispersed across organic surfaces, soil beds, garden areas, and porous materials throughout the zone.

Remediation of lead-contaminated residential soil is expensive and disruptive. It often requires excavation and replacement of topsoil, removal of contaminated plant material, and post-remediation testing to confirm clearance. The plaintiffs demanded injunctive relief in the form of remediation, meaning TTI and Skyline should pay to restore what they destroyed. Instead of addressing this environmental damage immediately, both companies spent the years from 2023 to 2025 fighting about which courtroom the case belonged in.

Economic Inequality

Lead paint contamination follows the geography of inequality. Older industrial infrastructure, including aging broadcast towers, disproportionately borders working-class and lower-income neighborhoods. The residents within the 4,000-foot radius of this Baltimore tower are now legally obligated to disclose the contamination to any potential buyers of their homes. For homeowners whose primary or only significant asset is their house, this disclosure requirement translates directly into reduced property value and reduced financial security. Wealth was extracted from these families without their consent.

The cost of private lead remediation, if not covered by TTI and Skyline, falls on individual homeowners. Many families in contaminated zones do not have the funds for professional abatement and testing. The class action represents their attempt to recover those costs collectively. But the corporations’ two-year legal strategy of forum shopping added delay to harm, stretching the period during which residents lived with uncertainty about their contaminated properties and the financial consequences attached to them.

There is also the matter of who could afford to fight back. Eight named plaintiffs and hundreds of unnamed class members took on a Maryland corporation and a national painting contractor with sophisticated legal teams, including backing from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States as an amicus curiae on the corporations’ side. The Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobbying organization, filed briefs arguing in favor of letting TTI and Skyline move the case to federal court. Regular Baltimore homeowners fighting a lead contamination case had the nation’s biggest corporate lobby working against them in federal court.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now?

The Fourth Circuit ruled on August 1, 2025, that this case belongs in Maryland state court. The corporations’ two-year detour through the federal system is over. The merits of the case, including the negligence claims, the negligent hiring claims, and the strict liability claims for an abnormally dangerous activity, now proceed before a Maryland court. That is where the fight for remediation, compensatory damages, and punitive damages will happen.

The Corporate Roles That Matter

• Television Tower, Inc. (TTI): Owner of the contaminated tower. Maryland corporation. Knew about the lead paint for decades. Hired an uncertified contractor. Failed to obtain permits. Failed to notify the Maryland Department of the Environment. Faces claims for negligence, negligent hiring, and strict liability.
• Skyline Tower Painting, Inc.: Colorado corporation, principal place of business in Nebraska. The contractor hired to perform the hydroblasting. Performed the work without required accreditation, licensing, or training. Faces claims for negligence and strict liability.

What Everyday People Can Do

If you live in Baltimore within a mile of the WMAR/broadcast tower area, you have the right to request lead testing information from the Maryland Department of the Environment and the right to consult with a lead remediation professional. The class action covers all real property owners within 4,000 feet of the tower whose property was affected on or after May 28, 2022. If your property was contaminated, you may be a member of this class. Contact a plaintiffs’ attorney to understand your options before the case moves forward in state court.

At the organizing level, this case is a textbook argument for stronger municipal permit enforcement and mandatory pre-notification for any lead paint work on aging infrastructure. Local community boards, tenant organizations, and environmental justice groups in Baltimore have a direct interest in the outcome of this case and in pushing city and state agencies to establish faster response protocols when contamination reports begin rolling in. The 35 residents who reported in June 2022 were the canary in the coal mine. The system should have moved faster.

Support mutual aid networks in affected Baltimore neighborhoods that are helping residents navigate the remediation process, understand their legal rights, and cover costs while the litigation proceeds. Two years of corporate delay means two years of families carrying costs alone. Grassroots support for those families, separate from and alongside the legal process, is not optional. It is necessary.