Carroll County Pathways Plan

By MAYOR DAVID W. PYATT
As published July 15, 2009

In my last column I referred to my hot little honey at the beach in Ocean City. My wife received a few calls asking if she was the honey in question. She is.

I had several conversations with Governor O’Malley and his cabinet during the Maryland Municipal League Convention on the topic of the Pathways Plan and potential rezoning of property South of I-70 and near Taylorsville.

The Secretary of the Environment said as a result of intensive lobbying by Commissioner Julia Gouge the Maryland Department of the Environment would not object if Carroll County chose to rezone from Conservation to Industrial Campus property including the headwaters of the Patapsco River—Parrs Spring and several miles of the South Branch—such that it would no longer have an environmentally protected status, a designation it has had since 1962.

The Patapsco accounts for roughly 20% of water flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. What state officials apparently did not realize is that Mt. Airy officials were left in the dark.

There is a scene in “Everybody Loves Raymond” where Raymond is tired of his wife being late, and he goes to a party without her. Everybody is appalled as to the future consequences. Well, this is the same reaction I get when I tell this scenario—“They did what?!”

The Carroll County Environmental Advisory Council (EAC) reviewed this situation on July 7 and will recommend to the commissioners that this rezoning be dropped from the Pathways Plan. It is interesting to note that the county chief of staff wrote a memo not allowing any county planning or environmental staff to attend this meeting.

I urge all to read again some of the background material in this plan.

I also attended a meeting to discuss impacts of adding water and sewer upgrades county-wide. Our future water would likely come from either Piney Run or a new reservoir in Union Mills. The costs for this will be in the hundreds of million dollars if not more. When I asked who would pay for this or where the money would come from, nobody answered—I was the only elected official attending.

I suspect the readers of my column have a pretty good guess who will end up paying for this fiasco. It’s just a question of when. On the other hand, this will be good for infrastructure builders. I guess this is our version of a “stimulus package” country style.