Business

An environmental watchdog group filed a lawsuit against the City of Baltimore on Wednesday, seeking immediate remedies to the millions of gallons of partially untreated sewage released by two Baltimore wastewater treatment plants into the Chesapeake Bay. Last summer, Blue Water Baltimore found high bacteria levels in the city’s harbor near the Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is operated by the city, and reported it to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

The estimated cost of building a connection for passengers to transfer between Metro’s Red Line Bethesda station and the future Purple Line stop nearby has grown by $22.6 million, a Montgomery County official said. The additional funding to build a mezzanine at a new Metro station entrance would increase the project’s budget by 20 percent. Montgomery has allotted $110.2 million to build a southern entrance to the underground Bethesda Metro station at Wisconsin Avenue and Elm Street, near the western terminus for the street-level Purple Line

The state-owned, public marine terminals of the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore received a top security rating for the 13th consecutive year by the U.S. Coast Guard as part of an annual inspection of facilities. The assessment reviewed security procedures and protocols at the six public marine terminals: Dundalk, Seagirt, North Locust Point, South Locust Point (including the cruise passenger terminal), Fairfield and Masonville.

Mercy Medical Center is now offering eligible graduates from an Associate’s Degree Nursing Program the opportunity to financially attain a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree through the hospital’s new RN-BSN Bridge Program. The program provides nurses interested in attaining a BSN degree with tuition assistance of up to $12,000 and a monthly stipend.

Union Craft Brewing is the latest Baltimore business and first Maryland brewery to switch to a worker ownership model, the Baltimore taproom and brewery announced Tuesday. The new model grants ownership shares to employees — whether they be full- or part-time — who have been with the brewery, located in Baltimore’s Medfield neighborhood, for five years. An inaugural group of worker-owners, who were recently granted ownership shares, is made up of six employees who have been with the company for five years or longer, including several of the breweries managerial-level staff members.

GKV lost almost a third of its business in 2020 but the advertising firm has been able to get growing again by shifting its strategy to do more work with fast-growing consumer packaged goods companies. Like other ad agencies, Baltimore-based GKV’s revenue took a hit as companies slashed their marketing budgets in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A former McCormick & Co. Inc. office complex in Hunt Valley — now dubbed Schilling Green III — will soon hold a medical center. University of Maryland Orthopaedics recently signed a lease for about 17,000 square feet at 226 Schilling Circle as the lead tenant in one of three renovated buildings formerly occupied by McCormick. The spice giant consolidated its workforce in 2018 in a new, modern office complex nearby.

A group of unemployed Marylanders has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against state Labor Secretary Tiffany Robinson, claiming that the problems they faced in receiving jobless benefits violate federal law. The group, which filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Maryland, is also seeking an injunction that would force Maryland’s Department of Labor to speed up its handling of unemployment claims.