Maryland regulators have granted W.R. Grace the air quality permit it needs to run a plastic recycling pilot in Columbia, Howard County — and residents living as close as 240 feet from the fenceline say they still cannot find out what the facility emits.

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) issued its final determination after the multinational chemical company satisfied state and federal permitting requirements for the pilot, which began operating in 2023. MDE required the company to control and monitor for volatile organic compounds and "forever chemicals," but did not require an environmental impact assessment, citing the scope of the pilot project.

"As long as the facility meets local zoning and land-use requirements, MDE is obligated to review an air quality permit application for activities related to the facility," the agency wrote in its determination letter. MDE's air quality control regulations prohibit a source from causing a nuisance or odor.

What can residents actually learn?

Not much, by the company's own framing. W.R. Grace has claimed that parts of its process are proprietary, limiting public information about feedstock sources and composition, fuel, and the chemicals used in the heating process. The state does not require the company to disclose the catalyst it uses to break down plastic feedstock.

Residents of Cedar Creek and River Hill, two Columbia communities adjoining the facility, have reported foul odors in recent weeks and say they do not know whether the air is toxic. The company has repeatedly stated that atmospheric emissions from the pilot will be "low" — even though the thermal oxidizer runs 16 hours per day, 250 days per year.

"Even in this very Democratic city … no one's listening," said Shamieka Preston, a community organizer with the Stop Grace Coalition who lives 400 feet outside the fenceline in Cedar Creek. Preston ran for the Howard County Council in District 4 and lost her primary in June, campaigning on holding W.R. Grace accountable after a court challenge to the company's operations permit and an attempt to change zoning rules on industrial-residential setbacks both failed.

Is the process pyrolysis?

W.R. Grace disputes that characterization. Advanced chemical recycling, or pyrolysis, applies extreme heat to plastic without oxygen to produce pyrolysis oil, which can be refined into transportation fuel.

"Grace scientists have developed a new way of recycling plastic that has the potential to reduce emissions, save energy, and lower costs compared to other plastic recycling options such as pyrolysis," a company spokesperson said by email. The company "followed the proper MDE process, including participating in a public hearing and a 120-day comment period," the spokesperson said, adding that the pilot "will not impact the health or wellbeing of our local community or the employees who work at the facility every day."

Lisa Krausz, who lives in River Hill, said the pilot's smaller scale does not ease emissions concerns. "Pilot projects can actually be more risky because they're testing stuff," Krausz said. "It's all experimental." She noted that some catalysts, like chromium, can become toxic after exposure to high heat.

Where does federal oversight stand?

Effectively nowhere, according to Scott Throwe, vice president of Throwe Environmental and a 30-year EPA veteran who helped develop and enforce Clean Air Act regulations. Throwe said there is almost no federal guidance on pyrolysis: no industry risk analysis, no regulations specific to the air pollutants the process produces.

Companies therefore only need to avoid violating Clean Air Act rules written before pyrolysis facilities began operating. "There's a very strong laissez-faire attitude at EPA with the states right now, and the state agencies basically, for all practical purposes, have carte blanche," Throwe said — warning that state agencies may lack the institutional knowledge to maintain robust monitoring.

"This is a pilot plant, so things are going to go wrong — that's the nature of pilot operations," he said.

The policy backdrop matters. In 2022, EPA's New Chemical Division announced it would "streamline" review of "environmentally friendly chemical substitutes" to bring waste-derived fuels to market, part of a Biden-era push that advanced chemical recycling advocates welcomed. Rita O'Connell, a staff organizer at Beyond Plastics, noted only about 6% of all plastic ever produced has been successfully recycled and argued chemical recycling functions as "an incredibly effective public relations campaign for the plastics and the petrochemicals industries to keep making as much plastic as they want."

What happens next turns on enforcement, not permitting: whether MDE's nuisance and odor provisions generate any action against the reported odors, and whether the pilot's undisclosed catalyst and feedstock stay hidden if the company moves toward commercial-scale operation.