Posts in Conservation & Land Use/Zoning

December 5, 2024

A proposed high-energy power line extending 70 miles from the Baltimore area to Adamstown would threaten an estimated 4,000 acres of farmland, forests and wildlife habitats. It would also require permanent easements on dozens of farms and private properties to site hundreds of 140-foot-tall transmission towers.

SCA joins the Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick County governments, the Maryland Farm Bureau, Preservation Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and a host of regional environmental in opposition to the project. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in late November he had “grave concerns” about the project but has not yet opposed it.

We urge you to learn more online and at StopMPRP.com. MPRP stands for Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project.

Power lines are, of course, a necessary fixture of modern life. When they are justified, we support them and live with the eyesore. But the necessity of this one has been widely questioned. It will mainly provide power to the burgeoning data center industry in Virginia, and not Maryland homes and businesses. But Marylanders will help pay the estimated $424 million cost of the project.

The project also relies on outdated infrastructure. Experts consulted by StopMPRP say more sustainable and efficient alternatives are available.

There are larger issues at play, too. Maryland lacks a coherent long-term energy strategy that takes the environment, the well-being of residents, and climate change into consideration—even as demand for energy is expected to rise sharply over the next decade.

MPRP is still in the planning stages and needs final approval from regulators and the entity (PJM Interconnection) that oversees energy sharing in 13 east coast and mid-west states. The projected date that MPRP would be completed and become operational is June 2027.

The company that won the bidding to build the project is Newark, New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG). PSEG says the project is designed to transport electricity primarily from Pennsylvania to Northern Virginia. To date, PSEG has not shared how much of that energy will end up being used in Maryland.

Notably, if Maryland landowners don’t willingly grant property easements to PSEG, the company could seek “eminent domain” to forcibly acquire their land. This would set a dangerous precedent and open the door to further encroachments on private land across the state. Because of rising demand for energy, projects like MPRP could become more frequent in the mid-Atlantic region. Thus, stopping MPRP could serve as an important precedent.

Conservation & Land Use/ZoningSCADecember 5, 2024Comment

Data Centers and a New Era for the Dickerson Industrial Property

Updated September 3, 2024

The siting, construction, and operation of data centers have become contentious issues in the mid-Atlantic area. Northern Virginia is home to the highest concentration of data centers in the country (31 million square feet!), with residents increasingly concerned about the economic and environmental impact. Virginia lawmakers have recently hinted that the data center boom in that state may have run its course.

That has data center companies and developers eyeing the other side of the Potomac River. Two large-scale data center projects in Maryland—one in Montgomery County and the other in Frederick County—are now in various stages of development.

What is a data center?

Data center buildings contain tens of thousands of computers called servers that receive, store and transfer data. The internet could not function without data centers; they are “the cloud.” Data centers serve the needs of IT companies, tech-heavy industries and government—and everyone who uses the internet, smart phones, streaming services and the like. They are essential to the modern economy and modern life. A data center will also have sophisticated electrical, safety and cooling equipment. Data centers require an enormous amount of energy; they currently account for approximately 2% of all electricity use in the U.S. That’s expected to double by 2030, in large part due to the growth of artificial intelligence (AI).

The Montgomery County project

This project is located in Dickerson at the site of the old Gen-On coal-fired power plant. That plant went into service in 1959 and was shuttered in 2020. In August 2022, a company called Terra Innovations bought 740 acres that includes the decommissioned power plant and surrounding area. About 255 of those acres are zoned “heavy industrial” (where the power plant stood). Most of the remaining 485 acres is zoned “AR” for Agricultural Reserve. None of that land has been farmed for decades, however, and not since the Ag Reserve was created in 1980. Indeed, both the industrial and AR zone areas have a mix of support buildings, utility infrastructure, access roads, and railroad tracks. Nearby, on other industrial zoned property, are the County’s incinerator, a natural gas power plant, and a 100-acre compost facility. About 73 of the 740 acres is forested.

Conservation & Land Use/Zoning, SpotlightSugarloaf CitizensSeptember 3, 2024Comment

Protecting the Sugarloaf Mountain Area

Updated January 6, 2024

On December 19, 2023, the Frederick County Council voted down a once-in-a-generation proposal to strengthen conservation and agricultural zoning on 19,700 acres in the southern part of the county.

The area in question in Frederick County is contiguous with Montgomery County’s Ag Reserve. It encompasses 3,400-acre Sugarloaf Mountain and an additional 16,300 acres to the east of the mountain all the way to I-270.

The vote came after a three-year process, which saw the Frederick County Council approve a comprehensive land-use plan—the Sugarloaf Mountain Treasured Landscape Management Plan—for the area in the fall of 2022. The Council struggled, however, to come to political consensus and agreement in 2022 and again in 2023 on an accompanying zoning ordinance—called an “overlay”—that would implement and enforce the plan’s land-use guidance.

That struggle occurred despite urging by Frederick County’s own planning commission and the Maryland’s Department of the Environment to approve the overlay.

In a nutshell, the debate pitted environmental and civic groups (including SCA) against developers, real estate interests, and business groups. The latter prevailed in a county long bent on loosely regulated growth.

The practical upshot is that the area’s existing zoning stays in place, with no updated conservation protections for natural resources, streams, trees or natural habitat— amid the known and unknown threats posed by climate change.

Importantly, that existing zoning largely prevents commercial and dense housing development without explicit permission from Frederick County authorities. But the failure of the Frederick County Council to enact the overlay opens up a path for developers and landowners to apply for zoning exemptions on a case-by-case basis.

Conservation & Land Use/Zoning, SpotlightSCAJanuary 9, 2024Comment

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