Baltimore County had a plan to trade sludge from the bottom of the Patapsco River for cash — at least $40 million.

But after outcry over environmental concerns, an agreement between the county and the logistics hub Tradepoint Atlantic has fallen through.

In a letter sent Thursday morning, Tradepoint informed county officials that it was abandoning its plan to use use Hart-Miller, the 1,100-acre formation at the mouth of Middle River, as the disposal site for millions of cubic yards of dredged mud it will produce as it constructs a new terminal expected to supercharge container capacity at the Port of Baltimore.

Though Baltimore County leaders, port officials and Hart-Miller devotees saw the proposal as a “win-win” to pay for improvements to the little island and surrounding communities, Tradepoint Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs Aaron Tomarchio wrote that “there remains a long-held sentiment that Hart-Miller Island should remain as-is,” regardless of any benefits to the community or “modern environmental, scientific and engineering safeguards” used to protect the place.

Tradepoint Atlantic, a logistics hub that owns the Sparrows Point industrial area, has been pursuing plans for its new terminal since 2022 and was initially exploring depositing about 4 million cubic yards of mud it unearths from the river bottom on the other side of Coke Point, the site of its planned facility. Earlier this year, though, the company began to push an alternate option to dump its muck on the north cell of Hart-Miller Island.

Maryland lawmakers passed legislation earlier this year that would have allowed Tradepoint to pursue a permit for this plan, as long as it first entered a benefits agreement with the county and community groups. The community had not yet agreed to Tradepoint’s offer of $40 million for the benefits agreement.

But Tomarchio said Tradepoint decided to abandon its plan in the face of clear community pushback. A Thursday night meeting of the steering committee tasked with determining the community benefits package has been canceled.

Mud from the river bottom is nothing new for Hart-Miller Island. The island itself was created from dredged materials in the 1980s, until state officials closed the containment site there to dredge in 2009. The containment area on Hart Miller Island’s northern cell is still estimated to have 9 million cubic yards of capacity.

Consternation over dredging on the island is nothing new, either. A court battle over the original dredging plan rose all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1990s. The court declined to hear the case, though, allowing dredging to continue.

In 2016, the south side of Hart-Miller Island opened as a state park accessible only by boat, while the north side, where Tradepoint’s dredge would have gone, remains closed to the public.

Paul Brylske with of Friends of Hart-Miller Island expressed disappointment at Thursday’s result. Though Brylske had initially hoped to secure a bigger commitment from Tradepoint, he said he never would have supported the $40 million benefits agreement if he’d felt the new dredging material would do anything to endanger the environment.

These plans fell through because of what Brylske, a decades-long advocate for Hart-Miller, called “misinformation” and, in some cases, “lies” spread by opponents who claimed the plan would damage the island and surrounding environment. Legislation to facilitate Tradepoint’s plans moved quickly, and while some well-intentioned people were trying to understand its potential environmental impacts, others rallied opposition with false information, Brylske said.

The dredge making up Hart-Miller Island has been tested for decades, Brylske said, and never shown issues.

“If you wanted to talk to me 35 years ago, I would not have been for this,” he said. “But now there’s 35 years of data saying the island is safe.”

Some opponents have expressed concern about contaminants left over in the dredged materials off Sparrows Point, where Bethlehem Steel operated for nearly a century. Others expressed worries to WYPR last month about the impacts of the plan for migratory birds or the economic value of the option to Tradepoint.

While the exact structure of the community benefits agreement had not been completed, members of the steering committee had been discussing a plan to divide the money in half. One pot would go toward Hart-Miller Island itself, for possible investments in a nature center, bird-watching resources and boater accessibility, among other things, while the remaining $20 million would have been spread among waterfront communities in eastern Baltimore County.

County leaders, including Executive Johnny Olszewski, also lamented the outcome.

“I am disappointed the effort will not continue and believe this is a missed opportunity to have done something transformative,” Olszewski said.

Councilman Todd Crandell was more direct, saying that “not once” did he hear “a legitimate argument or fact” against the proposal for dredging at Hart-Miller Island. “I am disappointed discussions have fallen to this point,” the southeast Baltimore County representative said. “We are leaving $40M on the table which could have created something special throughout our region. It is a sad day when misinformation is victorious at the cost of future generations.”

Tomarchio said in an interview that Tradepoint’s earlier projections that utilizing Hart-Miller island would speed up the construction of its new terminal by years turned out to be wrong. The company is likely to fall back on a mix of different solutions for its dredged material, rather than the one-stop option of Hart-Miller Island, he said, but it doesn’t expect the outcome to delay the new terminal’s projected 2028 opening date.

Frank Neighoff, a member of the steering committee tasked with determining the now-scrapped community benefits agreement, said he couldn’t necessarily vouch for the environmental concerns raised by opponents.

But at the end of the day, Neighoff, president of the Chesapeake Bay Association, said his job is to represent the interests of the community, and their message was clear: “Why risk our park? Why set a precedent if it is not necessary? Is it really worth $40 million?”