Piedmont dilemma

Environmental groups worry about Piedmont plan’s effects Piedmont dilemma Maryland environmental groups urge comprehensive review to limit ‘unintended consequences’ of large proposed power line Maryland environmental groups worry about the power line proposal’s ‘unintended consequences’ Letter calls for stringent assessment under 1970 federal law Maryland environmental groups urge comprehensive review to limit ‘unintended consequences’ of large proposed power line

Theaux Le Gardeur, left, head of the nonprofit Gunpowder Riverkeeper, listens to Ken Fiedler speak about the impact that the Piedmont power line proposal could have on the wetlands around his land. Karl Merton Ferron/Staff Photos

A BGE power line that has been in place for decades stretches over the property of Brandon and Marie Hill, as well as property owned by Judy Fiedler and her son Ken Fiedler on two privately owned properties between White Hall and Parkton, just south of the Pennsylvania state line.

Some Maryland environmental groups have formally entered the fray over the Piedmont power line proposal, issuing a letter that calls for the project to receive a stringent environmental review through a federal law.

Because of its breadth, the groups believe that the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project — which will connect a BGE transmission line in Baltimore County to a substation in Frederick County — should receive a comprehensive environmental assessment, through a law called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The law was enacted in 1970 to “address situations just like this one,” reads the letter, allowing for a review of the cumulative impacts of a project, rather than piecemeal reviews of impacts to individual tracts of wetlands, waterways, endangered species and historic areas.

Based on geospatial analysis conducted by environmental groups, the power line will impact nearly 100 rivers and streams in the watershed, 30 riparian wetlands around those waterways and 70 other federally identified wetlands, according to the letter.

“We may have to tolerate the unintended consequences of this power line, but we cannot tolerate the notion that regulators plowed ahead recklessly and in ignorance of the law, losing more of our waterways, historic properties, cultural resources, and critical habitats than we had to,” the letter, sent Wednesday, states.

The company proposing the route, New Jersey-based PSEG, has said that it plans to first apply for a key certificate — by the end of this year — from the Maryland Public Service Commission, which regulates local power projects.

“From there we will need, at a minimum, permits from the US Army Corps of Engineers, along with various permits from the State of Maryland as well as Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick counties,” wrote William J. Smith, a PSEG spokesman.

Cynthia Mitchell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, said in an email that the Corps has met with the power line company, but not received an application. Only after an application is received can the Corps make a determination about whether the line qualifies for a NEPA review, or a general permit, Mitchell wrote.

The open questions surrounding NEPA prompted the letter, said Evan Isaacson, a senior attorney with the Chesapeake Legal Alliance who helped compose it.

“When I heard basically deafening silence, I thought, ‘We should probably get involved here,’ ” Isaacson said.

The project has already gathered a passionate resistance movement, led by farmers and landowners, under a coalition called Stop MPRP. Hundreds of residents showed up to informational meetings about the route last week, many with signs and T-shirts opposing the high-voltage line.

The prospect that PSEG could use eminent domain to acquire tracts for the power line has become a rallying cry for the group “Just say NO!” Politicians, too, have expressed opposition to the project, including the Baltimore County Council. Residents have called on Gov. Wes Moore to oppose it.

But PSEG argues that the line, which was commissioned by the regional electric grid operator PJM, is sorely needed, because of coal plants retiring and big jumps in electricity demand, spurred both by power-hungry data centers and a push for electric vehicles, stoves and HVAC.

“We’re talking about the supply going down, the demand going up — two things heading in the wrong direction,” said Jason Kalwa, PSEG project manager, at a recent meeting in Baltimore County.

A ‘sanctuary’

Ken Fiedler calls his property in northern Baltimore County a “get-away-from-the-world sanctuary.”

Among the rolling hills that he has called home since childhood, Fiedler harvests hay and cares for a few ponies. There’s the small pond, with a memorial he built for his father.

But if PSEG’s project moves forward, his family’s land will be interrupted by the metal towers strung with high-voltage cables.

Already, one massive, steel power transmission line runs through the Fiedlers’ 134 acres near White Hall. But that infrastructure is decades old by now, and — apart from the swath of cleared land beneath the lines — a unique environment has evolved.

There’s a stream called Ebaugh’s Creek, about as wide as a single leap, where the brook trout swim. There’s patches of wetland that teem with skunk cabbage and ferns when the season is right. There’s a pack of 20 deer and a handful of turkeys. There’s strips of old-growth forest and a jumble of large rocks, where Fiedler played as a child.

Throughout the property, Fiedler and his 79-year-old mother, Judy, installed wooden stakes with little red flags, denoting the proposed right of way of the new power line, showing where it would encroach close to Ebaugh’s Creek and devour patches of tall trees. The right of way for the line is 150 feet wide, according to PSEG.

While the massive steel transmission towers likely wouldn’t be placed directly on the creek, the loss of trees will remove shade and hasten erosion. That could raise the temperature of the water, and cloud it with sediment and nutrients, making it inhospitable to wildlife.

“Temperature is the silent killer,” said Gunpowder Riverkeeper Theaux Le Gardeur, who is also among those advocating for the power line project to review a fuller environmental review.

Standing beside Ebaugh’s Creek, which flows into the Deer Creek and then the Susquehanna River, Le Gardeur said it’s just one example of many similar impacted environs.

“If they look at all these crossings [individually], it’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s not that much.’ But cumulatively?” Le Gardeur said.

‘Hooks’ to the federal government

The NEPA process is typically triggered for federal projects, Isaacson said, which the power line is not.

But several “hooks” bring the federal government — and NEPA — into the Piedmont equation, Isaacson said. That includes waterways that meet the legal definition for “waters of the United States,” federally protected endangered species in the area (including the tricolored bat) and historic properties.

“With all of the cumulative effects on all of those things, it’s just really hard for me to wrap my brain around how they wouldn’t involve the Army Corps,” Isaacson said.

The letter was also signed by Waterkeepers Chesapeake, the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, Blue Water Baltimore, the Gunpowder Riverkeeper and the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper.

In addition to the Army Corps, it was sent to the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said in a statement Wednesday that the agency has yet to receive an application for the Piedmont project, but issues permits for impacts to nontidal wetlands, their buffers and waterways of the state. A general stormwater permit could be necessary, too, Apperson said.

The NEPA process begins with an environmental assessment, and if there is a finding of significant impact on the environment, a more in-depth “environmental impact statement” comes next.

During a public meeting last week, when asked about environmental reviews, Kalwa didn’t reference NEPA, but said, “There’s a lot of environmental assessments that we have to do that will be part of our application.”

He referred to an “environmental review document,” which is traditionally part of the process before the Maryland Public Service Commission.

“We will meet all the standards out there, any of the regulations, any of the permits we need to apply for, we will do,” Kalwa said.

According to a separate analysis from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Piedmont project will impact 514 acres of protected area (mainly Maryland agricultural preservation foundation easements, but also a portion of Gunpowder Falls State Park), 377 acres of forest cover and 47 acres of wetlands.

“Every time you remove some shade, you are helping that stream heat up a little bit more, and cook our little critters in the sun,” said Gussie Maguire, Maryland staff scientist for the foundation.

For environmental groups, transmission lines pose an interesting dilemma, Maguire said.

On the one hand, transmission upgrades will be necessary to carry more electricity as nations turn away from fossil fuels. But on the other hand, building new lines may require sensitive forests and wetlands to be cleared.

Those impacts can be minimized with proper planning and mitigation efforts, like planting new trees in the place of those that are lost, she said.

“There will be more high-power, voltage lines coming to Maryland and coming across the country because we are an increasingly electrified country,” Maguire said. “This can set a very strong example of what we want these lines to look like.”

‘No, you cannot come on my property’

Brandon Hill, who owns a 60-acre property neighboring Fiedler’s, said he’s “very optimistic” that the power line will be halted at the Maryland Public Service Commission, given the dedicated opposition group that has formed to try and stop it.

Some of the hundreds who came to informational sessions this month to oppose the line are no longer in its path. They were only impacted by alternative routes that have since been abandoned. But still, they came. Hill wasn’t one of the lucky ones.

At the session at the Embassy Suites in Hunt Valley, Hill was emphatic.

“No, you cannot come on my property. No, you cannot come on my property. No, you cannot come on my property,” he said, pointing to a panel of PSEG officials one by one, eliciting cheers from the crowd, repeating the mantra “Just say no!”

Owning his land, which sits close to his childhood home, feels like a dream come true, he said. Aboard all-terrain vehicles, Hill surveys the former corn fields he’s hoping to transform into tree-filled groves, and the woodlands where he forages for fungi, such as milk-caps and beefsteak polypore. Some of that land will have to be cleared to make way for the line, Hill expects.

Hill learned of the project four days after he married his wife, Marie, on the property earlier this year. Since then, it has consumed his free time with research and public meetings, he said.

Existing power lines owned by BGE abut his property. Now, a bright white “X” is marked in the grass beneath the metal towers. He wonders if it denotes the beginning of the Piedmont project, which he’s so passionately pushing against.

In the crisp air of autumn, a soft crackling can be heard beneath the towers. To Hill, it’s a frustrating reminder of what could be to come.