Roy McGrath, former CEO of Maryland Environmental Services (MES) and Chief of Staff to former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, dead after manhunt
Roy McGrath died on Monday, April 3, 2023. The details are not clear.
By Pat Elder
April 5, 2023
Roy McGrath died after being shot Monday when FBI agents confronted him in a manhunt launched when he failed to show up last month for a trial on corruption charges. According to the FBI, McGrath was wounded during “an agent-involved shooting” last night in Knoxville, Tennessee. Further details, including how McGrath was wounded were not released.
McGrath, 53, was declared a wanted fugitive after his failure to appear in federal court in Baltimore on March 13, 2023.
Roy McGrath was indicted in 2021 on accusations that he fraudulently secured a $233,648 severance payment, equal to one year of salary as the head of Maryland Environmental Service, (MES), by telling the agency’s board that the governor had approved it, a charge former Maryland Hogan denies.
McGrath was also accused of fraud and embezzlement connected to roughly $170,000 in expenses. McGrath pleaded not guilty.
After McGrath accepted the generous severance payment, he was awarded the job as Governor Hogan’s Chief of Staff. McGrath resigned after less than 3 months on the job, after the payments became public. McGrath had worked on campaigns with Hogan since 1992.
Hogan announced on March 6, a week before McGrath was expected in court, that he was not seeking the U.S. presidency.
McGrath led the Maryland Environmental Service (MES), a mysterious, quasi-governmental agency, for three years. MES board members said they felt uneasy about the payout but didn’t want to cross Hogan.
Boards are funny things. The worst ones feature an executive who calls the shots with no oversight. Board members of various state and private entities are often half-asleep but nonetheless, wield the rubber stamp.
The MES was established by the Maryland General Assembly in 1970 as a “not-for-profit business unit of the state of Maryland to provide a host of environmental services to state, municipal, and county-owned facilities.” The organization does not file a Federal Form 990. MES is a mess.
Sure, it’s easy to take shots at them. MES provides needed services, although more grownups are needed in the room.
MES runs privately owned facilities. Alarm bells ought to go off.
This is a wake-up call. It is distressing to witness a man’s death in the midst of this slipshod bureaucracy. It’s frightening. MES is a regulatory body that ultimately determines the concentrations of carcinogens and disease-causing agents that are allowed to enter the air, soil, and water that surround us.
The MES employs over 700 and operates more than 1,000 environmental projects across Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic Region. MES operates 89 wastewater treatment plants across the state, as well as multiple landfills and incinerators.
MES operates using the revenue it generates from clients — mainly local governments — without being supported by general state tax dollars. It sounds great, except for the human health considerations. For the 2020 fiscal year, MES reported $178.7 million in revenue.
In his three-plus years McGrath was reimbursed $129,702 for conferences, travel, meals, and other expenses. McGrath used MES as a slush fund for himself. See Maryland Matters
Over the years, lawmakers have questioned the quasi-governmental nature of MES and its lack of accountability. Obviously, the unethical behavior may also encompass downplaying or falsifying complaints of environmental contamination in the state.
MES and St. Mary’s College of Maryland
PFAS leaches from the groundwater at the Navy base and travels across the creek to my beach.
In early 2020, I tested the waters in St. Inigoes Creek for PFAS at my home in St. Mary’s City, Maryland. I reported finding 1,894 parts per trillion of PFAS in the water. The results were widely discredited by state officials and the local press.
I responded by testing the foam which regularly collects on my beach. The foam contained nearly 5,000 ppt of the carcinogens, mostly PFOS, a lethal form of PFAS that collects in fish filet.
I blamed the Navy’s Webster Field Annex of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station which is located 1,800 feet across the creek. The base used PFAS in routine fire-fighting training for 25 years.
At the time, the Bay Journal reported, “Ira May, who oversees federal site cleanups for the MDE, suggested that contamination in the creek, if it exists, could have another source. The chemicals are often found in landfills, he noted, as well as in biosolids and at sites where civilian fire departments sprayed foam.”
The closest landfill is 11 miles away while the closest civilian fire house is 5 miles away.
“So, there are multiple potential sources,” May said. “We’re just at the beginning of looking at all of those.”
Why was the state covering for the Navy? I asked the world.
In 2020, 300 citizens crammed into the public library in Lexington Park demanding the Navy release data on PFAS levels on base. The Patuxent River Naval Air Station (Pax River) and the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) responded by reporting that groundwater at Pax River’s Webster Outlying Field in St. Inigoes, MD contains 84,757 parts per trillion (ppt) of Per fluoro octane sulfonic acid, (PFOS). The toxins were detected at Building 8076, also known as Fire Station 3, directly across the creek from me. The level of toxicity is 4.2 million times above federal health guidelines for groundwater.
A few months after reporting my results, St. Mary’s College of Maryland apparently felt compelled to respond to community concerns regarding the potential for PFAS in the water and the fish at the college, which is 2.5 miles from my beach.
Enter Maryland Environmental Services.
The following press release is masterful state propaganda, quasi or not. Textbook elements of intentional misinformation are found here. It is state-supported fake news. Let’s look at it.
From north to south: St. Mary’s College of Maryland, my home, and the Naval Electronic Systems Engineering Activity, Webster Field Annex of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
The press release by the college is in regular type. My comments are in bold.
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PFAS Final Report July 08, 2020 - Recently, the Navy has acknowledged that at NAS Patuxent River, and possibly at its Webster Field site, AFFF may have been released into the environment.
They call this a “Final Report,” although there are no published earlier reports. Few know what “AFFF” is. (It is aqueous film-forming foam). The Navy used the carcinogens for 25 years and perhaps longer at a firehouse directly across from my beach.
The Navy and EPA are currently investigating the extent of any contamination on NAS Patuxent River.
The Navy already knew the extent of contamination. The message here is that the public shouldn’t worry because the feds on it. The DOD dictates environmental policy in this regard.
Given our proximity to NAS Patuxent River and Webster Field, concerns have been raised relative to the risk that groundwater and surface water at the College could be contaminated.
The college felt compelled to respond so they reached out to MES. The college did not respond to my list of questions, including a request for the test results.
College drinking water is provided through three wells located on campus. The College has consulted with Maryland Environmental Services (MES), and requested MES specifically test our campus drinking water for PFAS. The final report confirms that the College’s drinking water is free of PFAS.
This is not the issue! The issue is the level of PFOS – one kind of PFAS chemical that bioaccumulates in fish, oysters, and crabs. The 300 who came to the library told the Navy they were concerned about poisoned seafood.
The other concern that has been expressed is the safety of swimming in the St. Mary’s River.
This about the poisoned seafood, although sustained occupational exposure to the skin from PFAS is a concern. (Later in 2020 I tested Crab and found 6,650 ppt, Oyster - 2,050 ppt, and Rockfish- 23,100 ppt.)
The College had MES test water from the St. Mary’s River for PFA, which showed a result of 1.7 parts per trillion (ppt), which is well below the 70 ppt Drinking Water Health Advisory Level set by the EPA.
PFA? Minnesota has set levels for PFOS at .05 ppt in some lakes because they are concerned about the bioaccumulation of the carcinogen in fish. A truly independent analysis of water and seafood concentrations ought to be conducted. We can’t trust the state. See how they falsified oyster data.
Last year, the EPA lowered its advisory for PFOS in drinking water to .02 ppt.
Maryland reported a Largemouth Bass contained 94,200 ppt of PFOS in its filet in the Potomac River at Piscataway Creek. That concentration is 4 million times higher than the lifetime health advisory set by the EPA for drinking water. The St. Mary’s River is a tributary of the Potomac.
PFAS chemicals are not readily absorbed through the skin so the risk of swimming in the river is negligible, however drinking the water from St. Mary’s River is not advised for reasons separate from PFAS chemicals.
The MES has the audacity to make fun of environmentalists concerned about PFAS pathways to human ingestion!
The Water and Science Administration of the Maryland Department of the Environment has confirmed these findings.
This is the same agency that falsified oyster data and suggested the PFAS in the water at my house came from a landfill 11 miles away, rather than from the Navy 1,800 feet away.
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The same obstinance characterizes the
Maryland Department of the Environment today
The Maryland Department of the Environment apparently hasn’t changed under the new Democratic Wes Moore administration. Gov. Moore was only too happy to accommodate the EPA in its desire to dump 2 million gallons of carcinogenic liquid waste from East Palestine, Ohio. EPA plans called for dumping the PFAS-laden toxins into the Chesapeake Bay. A retired EPA scientist said it was likely the EPA searched for the path of least resistance and came to Maryland.
Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) spokesman Jay Apperson said, “Levels of contaminants are so low that the water is not considered to be hazardous waste, and contaminants will be fully removed before the water is discharged.” In the end, Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott stood up to the EPA by refusing to allow the contaminants to be dumped into the city’s sewer system.
The Moore administration also blocked legislation last month that would have simply called for testing PFAS in sewer sludge and effluent before it is slathered on agricultural fields or released into the bay. This is the first step in actually regulating these carcinogens but the state would prefer not to know how bad things are.
Maryland’s environmental track record has steadily deteriorated since the departure of Governor Parris Glendening in 2003.
Financial support from the Downs Law Group makes this work possible.
The firm is working to provide legal representation to individuals with a high likelihood of exposure to PFAS and other contaminants.
Interested in joining a multi-base class action law suit pertaining to illnesses stemming from various kinds of environmental contamination?
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